THE OAK FAMILY, 367 



a hazle-nut tree in a young wood is one of the most beautiful sjjectacles that 

 nature affords. Every catkin is loaded with yellosv pollen, and a slight shake 

 causes it to be enveloped in a mist of shining particles. The leaves are often 

 marked in the centre with a large and irregular purplish spot, and in autumn 

 turn to a line and uniform light yellow. 



2, Beech — [Fagus sylvdtica.) 



Hedgerows, plantations, and parks, common everywhere, the finest 

 specimens occurring in Heaton Park, about Alderley, especially in 

 Lord Stanley's private grounds, and in Oughtrington Park, Lymm, — 

 grand trees, with the throstle, the green linnet, and seven or eight 

 other kinds of birds building their nests in them, so that to climb into 

 one is like entering a little city. Whether in any case truly indi- 

 genous about Manchester, is difficult to say, though abundance of 

 young plants spring up at Alderley every year from self-sown seed, 



Fl. May, 



E, B. xxvi. 1840 ; Baxter, v. 331. 



The beech is unquestionably one of the most noble of our forest trees. In 

 spring, when the young leaves make their appearance, the exquisite green light 

 of a beech wood is without parallel. No tree has leaves so delicately thin and 

 transparent ; they are edged when they first come out, with fine silvery and silky 

 hairs like white eyelashes, which extend to the veins of the under surface; and to 

 add to their beauty, clinging to the slender flexile t^vigs on which they grow, are 

 innumerable rose-coloured "perules," — the scales which wrapped them while yet 

 in the bud, and which, now that they are no longer wanted, are gradually turning 

 to a delicate light brown and falling oS". The quantity of these "perules " with 

 which the ground is strewed during May and the early part of June is truly 

 enormous, and makes the pathways where beeches grow resemble a threshing- 

 floor. No tree forms woods so peculiarly dry and pleasant to walk in, though 

 grasses do not thrive beneath the shade ; and in autumn, it eclipses every other 

 in the splendour of its auburn and golden dyes. The thin smooth leaves are 

 peculiarly adapted to reflect the rays of the setting sun, and their own colour 

 being rich in the highest degree, they burn and glow under the illumination with ■ 

 a lustre that well-nigh rivals it. The " purple" beech is a variety diifering in no 

 respect but that of colour from the common form of the tree; and the copper- 

 coloured a sub-variety of the purple, in which the deeper shade is less developed. 

 The foliage of both, when it first comes out, is of a fine cherry-red. There is a 

 remarkably handsome specimen of the pui-ple on the lawn at Cheadle Kectory, 

 the lowermost branches sweeping close to the grass. (Rectory grounds are gene- 

 rally good places to look in for rare and well-grown trees.) Another variety of 

 this tree, called laciniata, has the leaves lanceolate, and deeply and irregularly 

 pinnatifid. Branches with foliage of the normal character often sprout among its 

 boughs, and prove what few on being first shewn it are able to believe, that it is 

 really the same tree with a new face. There is a fine specimen of this variety in 



