Quercus ilicifolia, Wang.

Form.—Height 4-20 feet, diameter 2-6 inches; trunk short, branches stiff, contorted forming a flat-topped irregular head.

Leaves.—Alternate, simple, 2-5 inches long, usually 5-lobed, with shallow sinuses and sharp, bristle-tipped divisions of the lobes; leathery, dark green and lustrous above, coated beneath with a dense white pubescence.

Flowers.—May, with the leaves; monoecious; staminate flowers on long catkins, the pistillate on short tomentose stalks, and with red stigmas.

Fruit.—Acorns mature in second autumn after the flowers; cup deep, reddish-brown and soft downy within, with light brown scales, the outer row forming a narrow fringe around the edge; nut ovoid, about half enclosed in the cup; kernel yellow.

Bark.—Dark gray and scaly on old trunks.

Wood.—Strong, hard, with brown heartwood.

Range.—Maine to southern Virginia, west to Ohio.

Distribution in West Virginia.—Common along the Alleghany Mountains and in the Eastern Panhandle.

Habitat.—Dry soils of slopes and mountain tops.

Notes.—This oak is usually a shrub in West Virginia, but it sometimes reaches the form and size of a small tree. In many places it grows in dense thickets covering large areas on mountain sides and flats. The red-brown dry leaves often hang on over winter, giving rise to a common local name, “Red-brush.”