259 
following lines are intended as a contribution towards a clearer 
, at the same time, practical concept of the type of oak in 
question. a 
As the Arabs of Palestine have long known it by the name 
‘* Sindian,’’ we may, for the sake of greater clearness, speak here 
of it as the Sindian Oak, and thus keep it distinct from the Kermes 
Oak of South Europe and North Africa, with which it is frequently 
associated. Both belong to the “ coccifera’’ group, Quercus 
coccifera being the name originally applied by Linnaeus to the 
Kermes oak. These ‘‘ Cocciferae’’ represent a type of evergreen 
oak, widely distributed over the whole of the Mediterranean 
region from the Atlantic to the Levant. They form a character- 
istic element of the “ maquis’’ or ‘‘ macchie,’’ that is, the scrub- 
formation of the coastland of the Mediterranean, ascending here 
and there in the adjoining mountain ranges to altitudes of up to 
over:-4000 ft. Mostly shrubs from a few to 10 ft. high, they 
grow occasionally into small trees up to 20 ft. high, or, as in 
the eastern section of the area, into quite stately trees. The 
small, hard evergreen and mostly spinous leaves vary in size, 
shape and the degree of spinosity in the same individual, or in 
the individuals of a given colony, or, as it appears, from race to 
race. The fruits show a similar range of variation with regard 
to size, shape of the phyllaries or scales of the cupules, the length 
of the acorns relative to that of the cupule, and the time they 
take to mature. Here the variation is partly of the nature of 
response to conditions of nutrition or possibly age, individual 
fluctuation, or of a fixed character indicating the presence of dis- 
tinct generic units. This partly real and partly apparent insta- 
bility of the characters which challenge discrimination is very 
difficult to appreciate in detail, and apt to lead to one of the two 
extremes of taxonomic treatment, excessive ‘‘lumping”’ or 
excessive “splitting.’’ Both have had their apostles. The con- 
ception of one extremely ‘‘ variable’’ or polymorphic Q. coccifera, 
covering the whole group, is contrasted with the creation of almost 
a score of species proposed in the course of time for this same group. 
In either case it seems that too much has been merely assumed, 
and it will require prolonged observation and experiment to dis- 
entangle the stable and the unstable element in this apparent chaos 
of forms. No attempt in that direction is made here, but, viewing 
the material at my disposal, I have come to the conclusion that 
so far only one type of the coccifera group is known to exist In 
Palestine. It occurs either as a shrub or a tree of varying and 
occasionally considerable size; it has leaves, no doubt, of variable 
size, but on the whole larger and more oblong than those of the 
Kermes oak, and its fruits have large to very large cupules with 
rather long linear- or lanceolate-oblong phyllaries or scales, mostly 
free from the middle upwards and erect or more or less recurve: 
and covered with a fine greyish down. This oak is a common, if 
not the most common, constituent of the scrub or the maquis 
formation which occurs all over the southern and western slopes 
of the Judean plateau from the latitude of Hebron to Mount 
Carmel. entering here and there deeply along the valleys into the 
a2 
ws, 
