OAKS IN SCOTLAND. 211 



measures only about 8 feet in length, while on the lower it is 

 nearly 12 feet long. Four immense limbs spring from the bole, 

 and a fifth was wrenched off several years ago. This tree is 

 about 80 feet in height, and is positively known to be at least 

 four hundred years old. An interesting relic of the old Strath- 

 allan Forest remains there in the oak given in the returns. 

 This tree is called " Malloch's Oak," from the tradition of a man 

 of that name having been in olden times summarily hanged 

 upon it for storing up and hoarding meal during a time of 

 scarcity. There is still extant the contract of the sale of 

 oak trees in the Castle Wood, where this tree stands, and in 

 which " Malloch's Oak " is strictly reserved. This document 

 is two hundred years old. The tree must then have been a 

 familiarly known old tree, and it is popularly supposed to 

 be from five to six hundred years of age. It is much decayed 

 on one side, but still fiourishes in a green old age, the decayed 

 part, which is at a point where a large limb has at one time been 

 taken off", being plated over with iron. It girths 19 feet at 1 

 foot, and 14 feet 8 inches at 5 feet from the ground. A large 

 horizontal limb, which may have formed a very convenient 

 gibbet if the legend be true, extends 56 feet outwards from the 

 trunk, and is now supported by two posts. Not far from this 

 tree another remarkable and noteworthy oak grows in "the 

 birks of Tullibardine," near the spot where the old castle of that 

 name stood. Tradition reports that under this tree, which is 

 known by the name of *' The Chair Tree," the family of Tulli- 

 bardine, in feudal times, dined and held high revelry on special 

 occasions. It is surrounded by a ring of earthwork resembling 

 an old '' fcal dyke" which is 28 yards in diameter, and in this 

 circus arena it is said the castle horses were formerly trained 

 and exercised. It girths 17 feet at a foot from the ground, 

 and carries this circumference throughout nearly the entire 

 length of its bole, which is 20 feet high. It is apparently 

 not so old as " Malloch's Oak," but apparently also an old 

 " Forest " relic. Near the roadside on the property of DoUerie, 

 and near the right bank of the river Turret, about a third of a 

 mile above its junction with the river Farn, stands a remark- 

 able oak called " Fppie Callum's Oak." The liead is wide 

 for its height, and the trunk is very round. It girths 19 feet 

 8 inches at 1 foot, 15 feet 10 inches at 8 feet, and 15 feet 

 3 inches at G feet above ground. The legend of the name of this 

 tree is tliat a certain " Fppie Calluni," who lived at the place, 

 planted an acorn from some celebrated oak in an old teapot (she 

 must have been a civilized old woman for her day), and wlien 

 the acorn liad produced a rather inconveniently large young j)lant 

 she planted it, teapot and all, in lier kailyard, which occupied 

 the spot at the roadside where the tree now stands. Tlie story 



