2 HEV. DK. GEE — FAMOUS TREES IN HEETFOEDSHLRE. 



might well take a night for the full examination of one particular 

 sort of tree, and make a monograph of the beech or lime. To this 

 more exact and full treatment my sketchy paper may serve as a 

 profitable introduction. 



I would break ground with a remark upon the claim of certain 

 trees to be indigenous among us — to be, really, English trees. This 

 consideration will bring before us at once the oak, which of right 

 must be placed in the forefront of our studies to-night. It has been 

 said that the oak has more claim to be a truly English tree than 

 most. A token of this may be seen in the readiness with which the 

 oak seeds among us and grows from seed. Many will tell you that 

 the oak grows best, naturally, from its oak-corn or acorn. This 

 distinction may be strongly seen when you contrast with the oak 

 the common elm. The elm does not ripen, nor, I believe, often form, 

 a seed in this country. It certainly is propagated most commonly 

 by slips. Of course the cedar is not indigenous. The first cedars 

 planted in this country may be identified, at least by tradition. 

 " There are two cedars now standing," says Mr. Johns, " in a garden 

 at Chelsea, and said by Lord Holland to have been planted in 1683 

 by his ancestor. Sir Stephen Fox." The lime or linden seems 

 German by its association with Unter den Linden, or French, with 

 its connexions with Fontainebleau, or Swiss, from the old custom of 

 planting a lime tree wherever they won a victory from their op- 

 pressors. The beech is expressly said by Caesar not to have been 

 found in Britain, and its Welsh name " Fawydd " is taken to be an 

 adaptation of the Latin Fapis. Indeed these, our old Roman 

 masters, are thought to have naturalised here the chestnut, lime, 

 sycamore, box, and laurel. But they do not claim to have intro- 

 duced the oak, and we may safely declare the oak to have been 

 English in pre-natnral-historic times. No one can doubt that it 

 thrives well with us and takes a giant's grip of our soil. It is said 

 that even Americans, accustomed to the giant trees of their forests, 

 yet find an unmatched statcliness and grace in the English oaks.* 

 Our climate suits it. No one ever heard of an oak as being affected 

 by the severity of a winter, whatever that severity may be. We 

 may say of the oak that its gnarled and knotty trunk is engendered 

 by the rigours of our Northern skies. So Kingsley says of our- 

 selves — 



" 'Tis the hard grey weather 

 Breeds the Englishman." 



So very long has the oak been among us that we are scarcely aware 

 that he seems to have had an elder half-brother ; at least, that much 

 of the oldest oak timber in this country is not of the same kind as 

 that now in use. What we call oak timber now is the wood of the 

 Querms pedunculata. This has its fruit stalked and its leaves sessile. 

 The other oak, the Quercus sessillfora, has its fruit sessile and its 

 leaves stalked. This latter is the oak which furnished timber to 

 some of our oldest buildings — notably to St. Alban's Abbey and to 



* " English Parks have trees as fine and effective as any of ours." — Mrs. Stowe, 

 in * Sunny Memories.' 



