178 



ON THE TWO SPECIES OF THE ENGLISH OAK, 



BY THE REV. HENRY COOPER KEY, M.A. 



I wish to draw attention in this paper to a subject which has not had 

 touch notice taken of it of late years, although 30 or 40 years ago a good de-.I 

 used to be written about it, viz., the merits and demerits of the two species 

 of our English oak. I am no botanist myself, and therefore I must apologise 

 for treatir,g upon a botanical subject in the presence of many experienced 

 botanists; but this particular question has attracted my attention for the Lwt 

 25 years at least, and I have lost no opportunity of gaining information upnu 

 it by carefuUy noticing oak timber on aU occasions, both in a growing and 

 dry state. 



The two species of oak grown for timber in England are, as every one 

 knows, the Quercus eobue, or Peduncqlata, with leaves short-stalked and 

 not generally glossy, and acorns pedunculate ; and QcERcas sessiliflora, 

 with leaves long-stalked, larger, and always glossy, and the acorns sessile, in 

 fact the reverse of the other; the leaf -stalk characteristic however is not 

 constant. It is no doubt also generaUy known that Q. ped. is of low and 

 spreading growth, in short very like what we call a pollard. Many fine oaks 

 are caUed poUards, which never were polled at all, but merely follow their 

 natural growth. The oaks at Moor Park, in Herts (>ai Ped.), are popularly 

 supposed to have been poUarded by Anne, the widow of the Duke of Mon- 

 mouth, after his execution. On the other hand, P. Sessil. is of upright 

 growth, somewhat simUar to the elm ; and while the Ped. is exceedingly 

 common everywhere, the Sessil. is rather rare. I think I may say that in 

 the West of England you wiU meet with at least 300 specimens of Q. Ped. to 

 one of Sessil. In the more eastern counties, such as Kent, Herts, Middlesex, 

 and Essex, I have never yet met with a single specimen of the Sessiliflora 

 oak. This scarcity of the SessH. is a remarkable fact, but the cause of it is, 

 I think, not far to seek, as we shall see presently. 



Now the comparative merits of these two species, if we consult the 

 various writers who have occasion to mention the subject, is involved in 

 some confusion; in fact writers contradict each other point blank. One says 

 the Q. ped. is the hardest and most difficult to work ; another says it is the 

 softest timber; a third says the sess. is Uable to warp and split; a fourth 

 says that these are the qualities of the ped., and so forth. Such contradic- 

 tions as these must, I think, have arisen from a mistake in the particular 

 specimens under notice. In a small piece of oak timber it is not always an 

 easy matter to pronounce upon the species with certainty. But in reviewing 

 the published evidence (at least so much of it as I have been able to meet 



