Question

Which plant is described by these clues? It is {monoecious}: the male flowers hang in slender drooping tassels that shed wind-borne pollen while the females are minute and sit almost unnoticed in the leaf axils. Its fruit is a single hard one-seeded nut whose base is gripped in a woody cup built from fused {bracts}. Each twig ends not in one bud but in a tight cluster of several buds crowded around the tip. Its blades are cut into separate lobes by bays running a third to half the way in toward the {midrib}, rather than being merely edged with teeth. The spring vessels of its timber stay open instead of being plugged shut, so unlike the pale-wooded members of its own genus its wood will not hold liquid in a barrel. Every lobe narrows to a sharp point finished with a fine hair-like bristle, and there are 7 to 11 of them on a blade 5 to 9 inches (13 to 23 cm) long. Its nuts are broad, 0.75 to 1 inch (2 to 2.5 cm) long, seated in a shallow saucer that covers only about a quarter of them, and they need two growing seasons to ripen. Down the centre of each long flat-topped bark ridge runs a smooth, paler, shiny stripe, and on this tree that striping carries the entire length of the trunk. It ranges across eastern North America from Nova Scotia and southern Quebec west to Minnesota and south to Georgia, Alabama and Oklahoma, and commonly lives 200 to 400 years. The species epithet simply means red, for foliage that emerges reddish in spring and turns red to russet-brown in autumn. Its timber is the workhorse hardwood of American furniture, cabinetry and flooring, and the trade sells it under a name taken straight from the colour of its autumn leaves.

Accepted Answer

Quercus rubra

Name That Plant #126