Notwithstanding the unusual interest of this tree it is 
one of the rarest of cultivated oaks. Two trees at Kew, 
if we except some young plants recently raised, appear 
to be the sole representatives of Q. densiflora in this 
country. From the larger of these material for our 
figure was obtained. This tree was raised from a packet 
of acorns received from Professor Sargent in 1874, and is 
growing in the Oak Collection near the southern end of 
the Rhododendron Dell. In some respects Q. densiflora 
is the most attractive of all the hardy evergreen oaks. 
The young leaves are covered on the lower surface with 
a thick tomentum which is at first milk-white, becoming 
tawny with age. The stout parallel ribs are also very 
distinctive. The tree is very leafy, almost luxuriant in 
aspect, yet it is slow-growing, and the larger of the two 
specimens at Kew, now over forty years old, is only 
274 feet high, its trunk at 3 feet from the ground being > 
21 feet in girth. In July, 1897, this tree was 14 feet high 
and 7 inches in girth. Like all oaks, Q. densiflora likes 
a good loamy soil. It transplants extremely badly—a 
fact which may help to account for its rarity. It is 
safest to grow it in pots until it is large enough to plant 
out in a permanent place, which should be done as soon 
as possible. Care must also be taken that its roots do 
not become pot-bound. Its leaves persist for three or 
four years, and its fruits ripen at the end of the second 
year. These, however, cannot be relied on in this 
country for propagation. -It must be raised in the first 
instance from imported seeds. 
__ Descriprion.— Tree, often 50-80 {t., sometimes 100 ft. high, trunk usually 
34 ft., occasionally 5 ft. thick; branches ascending or spreading ; twigs at first 
tawny tomentose, at length dark brown and glaucescent. Leaves evergreen, 
oblong, oblong-obovate or broadly lanceolate, acute, subacute or shortly 
acuminate, sometimes rounded, base more or less rounded, sometimes cuneate, 
rarely shallowly cordate, margin serrate or serrulate, sometimes repand or quite 
entire, 2-5 in. long, 3-23 in. wide, coriaceous, slightly rugose, the edges 
thickened and revolute, at first densely clothed with tawny stellate hairs, when 
mature glabrous and shining or sparingly stellate-tomentose above, at length 
nearly glabrous on both surfaces, beneath occasionally somewhat glaucescent, 
the mid-rib and main nerves prominent beneath; potiole stout, tomentose, 
2-3 in. long; stipules oblong-obovate or linear-lanceolate, brown, scarious, 
pilose. Catkins leans in the axils of leaves of the current season, erect or 
ascending, dense-ftowered, tomentose, either wholly male or with the upper- 
most bearing a few basal female flowers, 2-4 in. long. Male flowers clustered 
in groups of 3, in the axils of ovate bracts. Perianth tomentose, 5-6-lobed, the 
lobes ovate-elliptic or nearly triangular, obtuse or somewhat acute. Stamens 
