of Timber f especially Oak, Sfc. 77 



indiscriminate application of their timber for naval purposes, 

 as we find that, in the charter of the Shipwrights' Company, 

 red wood was proscribed as inadmissible to the dockyaids, 

 and, along with sappy timber, was ordered to be removed ; 

 and both *' strictly prohibited and restrained from being used 

 in or upon any ship or other vessel." Marty n, however, as Ray 

 and Bauhin had done long before him, emphatically insisted 

 upon the distinction being made between our sessile-fruited and 

 stalk-fruited oaks, the latter of which gives a lighter and more 

 lasting wood, when exposed to atmospheric influences, than the 

 former ; and the Durmast or Downy oak would seem to yield 

 a darker and less enduring timber than either of the others. — 

 (Vide Flora Rustica, Botanical Diversions, &c.) 



These important distinctions, now generally established, were 

 formerly either little known or less attended to ; for Nichols, 

 in his book, observes, " The plantations made in the New 

 Forest, about the year 1700, were of the Durmast oak, the 

 timber of which is not so durable as the true Enghsh kind. 

 And we are told in a late Number of the Quarterly Review, 

 which, nevertheless, confounds the Q. sessiliflora with the Q. 

 pubescens, that the wrong oak still '' abounds, and is propa- 

 gated vigorously in the New Forest, and other parts of Hamp- 

 shire, in Norfolk, and the northern counties, and about Lon- 

 don." This picture seems to me far too highly coloured : 

 certainly in the neighbourhood of London, and within twenty 

 or five-and-twenty miles thereof, it is comparatively rare to 

 meet with either the sessile-fruited or the downy oak. Since 

 the botanical characters have been popularly familiar, the pre- 

 ference has most properly been given to the cultivation of the 

 stalk-fruited oak (Q. pedunculata ;) but as I have elsewhere 

 observed (vide '^ Amoenitates Quernese,") the timber of the ses- 

 siliflora is far from worthless, it being both tougher and stronger 

 than the pedunculata, though less enduring and elastic ; and 

 the pubescens affords, for many purposes, a valuable wood. 



I cannot forbear correcting a botanical error which seems 

 to have lately become prevalent, for it has been repeated in 

 several influential publications of the day, namely, that the 

 Q. sessiliflora is not a native species. It is probably true, that 

 the downy oak is not indigenous to Britain ; but even this is 

 doubtful. Miller tells us, that it was brought to this country by 

 the Duke of Richmond; and hence the mistake ha? probably 



