160 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



The showy and beautiful flowers are in roundish tassels or 

 heads, dependent by threadlike, silky stalks, of one or two 

 inches in length, from the midst of the young leaves of a newly 

 opened bud, whose long, delicate, ribbon-like scales are still ad- 

 hering. Each flower is a hairy or silky, bell-shaped cup, with 

 its border divided into six segments, and contains usually from 

 six to twelve stamens. The fruit is on a hairy footstalk, from 

 the axil of a leaf. The footstalk enlarges upwards into four 

 fleshy, lanceolate scales, fringed, and set with stiff, sometimes 

 double prickles. As it ripens, these open, disclosing two prisma- 

 tic triangular nuts, whose edges thin out into a waved border. 



The fruit, called beech mast, is a rich, oily nut. It is eagerly 

 devoured by pigeons, partridges, squirrels, and other wild 

 animals. Bears are said to have been very fond of it, and 

 swine rapidly fatten upon it. Most varieties are so small as 

 not very richly to repay the trouble of gathering, drying, and 

 opening them. Fortunately, this is not the case with all, as 

 the mast is a delicious nut. In France, the beech mast is 

 much used for making oil, which is highly valued for burning 

 in lamps, and for cooking. In parts of the same country, the 

 nuts, roasted, serve as a substitute for coffee.* 



The leaves were formerly used in Britain, and are, to this 

 day, in some parts of Europe, for filling beds.f Evelyn says 

 that, "its very leaves, which make a natural and most agree- 

 able canopy all the summer, being gathered about the fall, 

 and somewhat before they are much frost-bitten, afford the 

 best and the easiest mattresses in the world, to lay under our 

 quilts, instead of straw; because, besides their tenderness and 

 loose lying together, they continue sweet for seven or eight 

 years long ; before which time, straw becomes musty and hard : 

 they are thus used by divers persons of quality in Dauphine ; 

 and, in Switzerland, I have sometimes lain on them to my very 

 great refreshment. So as, of this tree it may properly be said, 



' Silva domus, cubilia frondes.' — Jicv. 



'The wood's an house, the leaves a bed.' " — Sylva, Hunter's ed., p. 141-2. 



" We can," says Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, after quoting this 

 passage, " from our own experience, bear testimony to the truth 



* Loudon's Arboretum, p. 1963. f Ibid. 



