198 ON THE OLD AND REMARKxVBL 



ON THE OLD AND EEMARKABLE OAKS {Quercus 

 Fcdunculata et Sessilijlora), IN SCOTLAND. 

 By Robert Hutchison of Caiiowrie. 

 [Premium. — TJie Gold Medal.'] 



Although these two well-known varieties of the British oak 

 (Qtcereus Robur) are sufficiently distinct botanically to be classed 

 as separate species in a report like the present upon the large 

 and old oaks in the various districts of Scotland, it is necessary 

 to treat them indiscriminately, and, indeed, as it is not so much 

 the intention of this chapter of the old and historically remark- 

 able trees, to present any scientific or botanical description, or 

 narrative of their physiology or morphology, as to lay before the 

 reader as accurate and full a catalogue as possible of the many 

 majestic specimens of this monarch of the woods abounding in its 

 native habitat, it is probably quite pardonable to treat these two 

 varieties together without distinction, especially as it has been, 

 found extremely difficult to obtain sufficiently reliable difference 

 in each from the mass of returns furnished by careful corre- 

 spondents, whose kindness and trouble in correctly furnishing 

 minute data of dimensions and other details, it would be quite 

 unfair to tax by asking further information as regards a purely 

 systematic botanical distinction. Both varieties are found grow- 

 ing together in Scotland in their natural condition, and both are 

 indiscriminately employed for commercial purposes when con- 

 verted as timber of home growth. Of the two it may be safely 

 asserted that Q. pedunculata is by far most generally met with, 

 and the details in the appendix to this chapter on oaks are 

 mainly occupied with examples of this variety. Quercus sessili- 

 jlora is much more commonly met with in England than in 

 Scotland, and there are some immense trees of it in that 

 country, but principally in the southern counties, as, for example, 

 in many parts of Kent, Sussex, and Devonshire ; and on the 

 authority of Mr Bree, Q. sessilijlora is the almost exclusive 

 representative of the Quercus family in the lake districts of 

 England, in Westmoreland and Cumberland. 



AH former writers on arboricultural topics agree in allotting 

 the foremost rank, both in point of dignity, grandeur, and utility, 

 to the oak. Its beauty of outline when fully developed, com- 

 bined with its strength, and unyielding resistance to the effects 

 of the blast in exposed sites, are its chief characteristics of habit 

 during life ; and when manufactured into timber, the wide and 

 almost universal purposes to which it may be profitably and 

 suitably applied, are as characteristic of it as are those of it 

 durinii- life which we liave referred to. " It is a remarkable 



