WILLOW OAS (Quercus phellos, Linn.). 70 to 80 feet. Graceful, tall, quick-growing oak, with narrow, round head of slender branches. Bark light red-brown, with scaly surface and shallow fissures. Wood soft, coarse-grained, heavy, used in construction, for wheel Tellies, and clapboards. Leaves leathery, willow-like, with an occasional side lobe and a mi nute spiny tip; glossy green above, paler, dull beneath; 2 to 5 inches long; petioles short. Flowers delicate, hairy, of the
oak type. Acorns few, solitary, or paired, inch across, flat based, in thin, saucer-like cup of thin, hairy, reddish-brown scales; kernel bitter. Dist.: Wet ground, swamps, coast belt Staten Island to Florida and along Gulf coast to Texas; north along river to Kentucky and Missouri. Fine shade and ornamental tree, much planted in Southern cities.