ii6 THE FRUITS OF THE COUNTRY-SIDE 



each, being surrounded by large, round, yellowish scales ; 

 while the pistillate blossoms are in slender lax catkins, often 

 several .inches long. These are conspicuous from the long, 

 foliaceous, three-lobed floral leaves that envelope the flowers. 

 These catkins and the leaves appear together in April 

 or May. 



The nuts are small, and very prominently ribbed ; they 

 will be found at the bases of the floral leaves, and ripen 

 about September. These floral leaves grow larger and 

 become yet more conspicuous as the fruit within their 

 shelter ripens. 



The hornbeam would, under favourable circumstances, 

 attain to a height of some forty feet, but it bears chopping 

 very well, and is often found severely pollarded in con- 

 sequence. As one goes to Burnham Beeches to see the 

 most picturesque pollarded beech-trees, so in Epping Forest 

 one may find hundreds of the most picturesque hornbeams, 

 pollarded for firewood and poles, by those having forestral 

 rights of " lop and top," or possibly sometimes by those 

 not possessing them. 



SCOTCH PINE (PiNus Sylvestris) 



We pass on from the glowing beech woods of the 

 South to the great sombre pine forests of the North, and 

 the transition is a very striking one. Our illustration, 

 Plate XVII., presents to us the foliage and cones of the tree 

 that is best known as the Scotch Fir, though technically 

 it is a pine, and botanically it is the Finus Sylvestris. This 

 word pine or pinus is derived from the Celtic pin or pen, 

 a head, the reference being to the growth up to two 



