CATKIN-BEARING TRIBE 193 



reach the dimensions of a tree, attains a height of about twenty feet. 

 Leyden, in his verses on Spring, says : — 



" I see the Hazel's rough-notch 'd leaves, 

 Each morning wide and wider spread, 

 While every sigh that zephyr leaves 

 Sprinkles the dewdrops round my head. 



" The yellow moss in scaly rings 



Creeps round the hawthorn's prickly bough ; 

 The speckled linnet pecks and sings, 

 While snowy blossoms round me bow. 



" The gales sing softly through the trees, 



When boughs in green waves heave and swell ; 

 The azure violet scents the breeze, 



Which shakes the yellow crowfoot's bell." 



And the Hazel is a continual subject of allusion among the troubadours and 

 old French poets. 



This tree retains its leaves till the first severe frosts ; and they are in 

 autumn of a russet brown, which finally changes to a rich yellow tint. The 

 branches being picturesque, the tree is used in France for arbours and walks. 

 It is said by the growers to thrive best in Hazel-mould — that is, a mould of 

 a reddish-brown hue ; but it will flourish on any soil that is not too moist. 

 Many Old-English names of places and persons are derived from this plant, 

 as Haslemere and Hazelbury. It grows sometimes in the North at a great 

 elevation, and it is a tree of all the temperate climates of Europe and Asia. 

 The French call it Coudrier ; the Germans, Hasehtrauch ; and the Italians, 

 AveUano and Nocciola. 



The two varieties of the Hazel which are most commonly cultivated for 

 the nuts are the Cob and Filbert trees. The latter diff"er from the ordinary 

 form of the tree in the larger nuts with their handsomer green coverings. 

 They are grown plentifully in Kent, especially in the neighbourhood of 

 Maidstone. 



10. Hornbeam {Cdrpinns). 



Common Hornbeam (C. hMulus). — Leaves egg-shaped, acute, sharply 

 and doubly serrated, plaited when young ; scales of the fruit 3-parted. The 

 Hornbeam is a common tree of poor damp soils in several parts of England, 

 forming a chief portion of some of the old forests about London, as of that 

 of Epping. Gerarde, who speaks of it as growing in his time very plenti- 

 fully in Northamptonshire, and about Gravesend in Kent, thus describes it : — 

 " It grows great and very like unto the elme or witch hasell-tree, having a 

 great body, the wood or timber whereof is better for arrows and shafts, 

 pulleys for mills, and such like devices, than elm or witch hasell ; for in 

 time it waxeth so hard that the toughness and hardness of it may be rather 

 compared unto horn than unto wood ; and, therefore, it was called Horne- 

 beam, or hard-beame. The leaves of it are like the elme, saving that they be 

 tenderer ; among these hang certaine triangled things, upon which are found 

 knaps or little buds of the thickness of ciches (vetches), in which is contained 

 the fruit or seede : the roote is strong and thicke." 



Like most of the descriptions given by our old herbalists, this is sufficiently 

 graphic ; and the tree is doubtless often mistaken for the elm from the simi- 



m.— 25 



