Dwarf Chinkapin Oak
All Resolutions
Quercus prinus chincapin [sic].
Small chestnut oak.
Description:
Stipple engraving showing leaves, acorns, and tip of a branch of the dwarf chinkapin oak (Quercus prinoides), a tree in the family Fagaceae native to North America. This tree is described as follows by the author:
The leaves of the small chesnut oak are oval-acuminate, regularly but not deeply denticulated, of a light green above and whitish beneath. The acorns are enclosed for one third of their length in scaly sessile cups; they are of a middle size, somewhat elongated, similarly rounded at both ends, and very sweet.
Nature seems to have sought a compensation for the diminutive size of this shrub in the abundance of its fruit: the stem, which is sometimes no bigger than a quill, is stretched at full length upon the ground by the weight of the thickly clustering acorns.
Translation by Augustus Lucas Hillhouse.
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