calyx, with very small denticulated limbs, and a lower ovarium - with two cells, each containing a suspended anatropal ovule. This ovarium is surmounted by two long styles of a lively red. At the period of fructification the involucrum has undergone great development; it has become foliaceous, a little fleshy, and slightly bell-shaped at its base, opening at the summit and containing a fruit, or nut, which is an achenium, in consequence of the abortion of one of the cells, and of the ovule, which it encloses. The seed, with slight membranous shell, contains an embryo destitute of albumen, under a slight integument: cotyledonous, smooth on the surface of one side, and convex on the other. Ba

The common Yoke Elm, or Hornbeam (Carpensis betulus), when allowed to attain its natural dimensions, is a graceful tree, rising to the height of twelve to thirty feet, with a slightly smooth and ashy grey bark, and somewhat resembling the Beech in its appearance. The male flowers are disposed in cylindrical catkins, the imbricated scales of which directly protect from six to twenty stamens, with short bifurcated filaments and unilocular anthers barbed at the summit. The female flowers are disposed in clusters, the exterior with caducous bracts, of which each bear two unl-floral involucrum, presenting an appearance very analagous to those of the Hazel-tree. The fruit has a foliaceous, veined, reticula cupule, with three lobes, the middle one of which is much larger than the other two. The most important principle of the wood of the Yoke Elm is in its caloric power. It is an excellent fire-, wood. It is much used in the fabrication of certain tools, and parts of machines which are subjected to much friction, and where great durabiltiy is necessary; but it is coarse, and in consequence of the larger size of its medullary processes it is unfitted for cabinet work. The Hornbeam is an indigenous British tree, very comme? in copses, and is frequently pollarded by the farmer. When checked and stuntedinthis way it retains its withered leaves all the winters and is useful where winter shelter is required. The wood ni anciently used as yokes for cattle, hence its popular and scientific name from the Celtic word Car, wood, and pinda, head. The Oaxs (Quercus) are monacious trees with simple alternate leaves, each having two caducous stipules. The male flowers fe ed in filiform catkins, slender, interrupted, and pe nden oe

(Fig. 383). Each flower presents a calyx with six or eight free unequal divisions, the margin being bordered by long slender pro-

Fig. 383.—Male Catkin of the Oak. cesses, and an equal number of opposed stamens, with bilocular anthers, which open from without by two longitudinal clefts. The

Fig. 384.—Female Flowers of the Oak. Fig. 385,—Fruit of the Oak. = flower (Fig. 384) is composed of an inferior ovarium, and with or six divisions, three having by a perianth wmounted

a short style, which is divided in three stigmatic branches, added to which it is surrounded by a sort of little cup, or cupulla, formed by a fold of the peduncle, upon which a large number of small imbricated bracts are inserted. The ovarium is three-celled, each having two’ anatropal ovules. At maturity, two of these three cells, with their contents, are abortive. The fruit, designated under the name of an Acorn (Fig. 385), is of an ovoid or cartilagnous and at its summit with a umbilicated oblong shape, shiny pericarp, becoming from this shape unilocular and monospermous. Under its covering this seed presents an embryo destitute of albumen, the cotyledons of which are convex on the outside, and flat on the inside; they are also fleshy and farinaceous. The fruit is enveloped at its base by the indurated and ligneous cupulla of which we have spoken.;

The Oaks belong almost exclusively to the northern hemisphere, where they inhabit the temperate regions, or the high The species which they mountains of equatorial countries. include, unlike Roses, are scarcely known in a wild state ™ the southern hemisphere, their southern limits being the islands whence they spread westward along Archipelago, of the Indian the Himalayan range until they reach Europe. The Oaks are the most majestic trees of our forests, with robust convenient. will be and powerful, far-spreading branches. It rg divide them into Forest Oaks, or Roburs, Ilemes, and. Clubbed Oaks

The common Oak, Q. pedunculata, is the true British Oak; of its et on account for ship-building suitable is alone which bility and hardness; but it is probably more influenced by dé soil on which it grows; and for the Oak, the soil of Sussex aL to surpass any other; the Sussex Oak is also recognised wee which is reco best kind employed. This is Q. pedunculata, by the very short stalks of the leaves, while the acorns at pee - on long stalks. The Sessile-cupped Oak, Q. sessiflora, sometimes a: English Oak, is found all over England, but is more abun eerth4 the greater part of the Oak in AOF constitutes the West, and Wales. It isof more rapid growth than the last, and * much larger dimensions. ith 4 °

Quercus sessiflora, represented in Plate XII., 18 4 ae

Res

Plate XII.—The Oak (Quercus sissiflora).

frame of variable size, with petiolate, oblong, almost oval, sinuated leaves, with a fructifying peduncle much shorter than the petioles; the fruit arrives at maturity the same year with the flowers which are to produce their successors.

Quercus Ilex is an Evergreen Oak, native of the European continent, of some 50 to 60 feet in height; the leaves are shiny above, grey or whitish and tomentose on the lower surface; the fruits are sessile, or borne by the short, downy, or rather hairy peduncle, with tubulous, scaly, cotonous cupulla. They grow in arid places, and are common in the South of France. The acorns are sweet and eatable. The wood is very combustible, and much used in France as fuel; besides which, it is largely employed in naval construction, carpenter’s and cabinet work. _ The Cork-tree (Quercus suber), of which we have already spoken in the chapter on Bark, is closely allied to the Evergreen Oaks; its leaves are persistent till the end of the second and even the third year. It is, as already stated, the corticle, or bark, largely developed, which produces the substance known under the name of cork. It grows upon mountains of slight elevation, a little removed from the basin of the Mediterranean. Limited to some parts of the South of France and to Spain, the Cork Oak is the predominant Mhabitant of the forests of Algeria, where it constitutes woods of great extent, occasionally mixed, however, with other denizens of the forest, The Kermes Oak (Quercus coccifera) is a tufty bush, of from T to 12 feet high, with small, oblong, cordate, dentate, thorny, Persistent leaves of a smooth green; common in dry, sandy, and Stony places in the regions of the Mediterranean. It is upon this hittle Oak that the cochineal, a hemipteral insect, lives, from Which the beautiful scarlet colour was obtained before the introduction and employment of the cochineal of the Cactus (Cochinil-lifera of Nopal) into Europe.

| Club-shaped Oaks are distinguished by their thin and deeply

dentated leaves, the loose, narrow scale of their cup, and their ng deciduous stipules. , Ne Quercus cerris, rather rare, but widely disseminated in France, ; i anttable for the scales of its cupulla, which are linear, recurved the outside, and gyrose on their upper part. In this species ee AA

the female flowers remain stationary during one year of their appearance, and do not complete their evolutions till the autumn of the second year. The Spanish Oak (Q. Hispanica) bears its branches erect; leaves nearly evergreen, lanceolate, and acute, and finely serrated; dark green on the upper side, glaucus green on the under surface. Bark thickly cortical, and top shaped with shaggy, prickly, spreading scales. This tree grows in Spain and Algeria, and is found in some of our nurseries under several synonyms.

Besides these species there is the Austrian Oak (Q. Austriaca) found in Hungary and Lower Austria; the prickly capped Valonia (Q. Aigelops), which grows in the Morea, valuable for its acorns, which are largely imported for tanning purposes; and various Oaks, the produce of the mountains intervening between India and Asia Minor. Of the species which Dr. Royle found in the Himalayas, most of them are too tender for acclimatisation with us, but some cf them are beautiful trees.

The American Oaks are numerous in species, but their timber is by no means of the same value as their European congeners. The White Oak (Q. alba) produces sweet acorns and excellent timber, some specimens in the American forest attaining the height of seventy or eighty feet. The Chestnut-leaved Oak (Q. prinus) is cultivated in all the nurseries and under eight or ten synonyms. It isa handsome tree, with broad bright-green foliage, but its timber is light and porous. The Black Oak (@.: tinctoria) is a native of the Carolinas, Georgia, and Pennsy aw @ where it attains a great size, with large handsome ovoid leaves, autumn. © in the yellow red, or dull, become which beneath, downy properties than. for its colouring appreciated The tree is more but its mmmer bat coarse-grained; its timber, the latter being abounds in a yellow dye of great brilliancy, known as Quereitron, which is much sought after. The Live Oak (Q. wivens) is § ¢ valuable timber tree, which grows in the Southern States ofba Union, growing on the shores of the creeks and bays. Tt 16 leaves; oblong coriaceous, with wood, fine-grained compact,heavy, eath; acorns —obtuse at the base, clothed with starry down ben oblong, and said to be sweet tasted. of Mexico and lands high on the found of Oak are species Many

the adjoining States, growing at a height of five or six thousand feet above the sea. Some of them, as the Iron Wood Oak (Q. sideraxyla) and the Large-leaved Oak (Q. macrophylla), trees either yielding

valuable timber, or of great beauty. The large-leaved oak is, perhaps, the finest oak in the world; its leaves, which are downy beneath, tapering at the point, and heart-shaped at the base, being from 12 and 18 inches long, and broad in proportion; and its acorns are large as French walnuts. _ The Beech (Fagus sylvatica) is one of our best known and most mportant forest-trees. It attains great dimensions, sometimes rising to the height of 100 feet with us, and even 120 feet in more favoured climates; its smooth, strong stem, which becomes ashy grey by exposure to the weather, rises round and straight through its foliage, remaining visible to its first branch, so that a Beech wood presents a clear vista, their thick leafy heads prevent-ing brushwood from growing under them. It is sometimes free from branches to the height of 60 feet. Its leaves, petiolate, ovate oblong, are generally pointed or acuminate, loosely dentated, Waving, and coriaceous, with prominent ciliated veins: silky at by two brownish the edges;they are alternate, and accompanied stipules; they are shining and thin, changing in the autumn to 4 brownish russet. The flowers, which are unisexular, appear at the same time as the leaves. The male flowers are disposed in long, pendent; globular catkins; with long peduncles; and very small Pendent, caducous scales. The female flowers are enveloped, to the number of two or three, in a common two-lobed prickly Myolucre, covered exteriorly with a number of filaments; the fruit is the Beech-nut. The sced contains an embryo without of which are irregularly folded up inside, albumen, the cotyledons and strictly coherent. The oil obtained from this seed is both _ fatable and a good lamp oil.

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