1746 ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM. PART III. 
cially along the Torridge, from Torrington to 
Bideford; and about Clovelly. In those parts 
is a variety with the leaf of a very large size 
(see fig. 1574. in p. 1738.); and I recollect 
a tree in Clovelly Park with all the leaves oddly 
recurved at the edges, so as to have a convex 
disk. I recollect, also, some very ancient pol- .¢ 
lards, with leaves of great size, near Inver- 
castlie, on the Ross-shire side of Strath Oikell. 
I think the species is common in Scotland. I 
presume an oak with a long, narrow, ragged 
leaf, which I happen to have seen only at Chep- 
stow Castle, where there are severa! trees, pro- 
bably all planted, and where it is called Maiden 
oak, is a var. of Q. sessiliflora.” (W. B. Jan. 
1837.) Mr. Bree says that in some parts of 
North Wales, and in the neighbourhood of the 
lakes in the north of England, Q. sessiliflora is 
the more prevailing kind of oak ; constituting, : 
as it were, the staple growth of the country, almost to the exclusion of 
Q. pedunculata. Great part of the Forest of Ardennes, in Warwickshire, 
he says, consists almost entirely of Q. sessiliflora, of which there are 
specimens which exhibit marks of great antiquity. (Gard. Mag., vol. xii. 
p. 572.) Q. sessilifléra is said by Bosc to be the more abundant species 
in the forests in the neighbourhood of Paris, where it forms a lower and 
more spreading tree than Q. pedunculata; which, however, is said to be 
the more common oak of France. In Germany, if we may judge from the 
name for Q. sessiliflora, gemeine eiche, it would appear to be the more com- 
mon; and we are informed by German gardeners that this is the case. We 
have seen both sorts in the Black Forest, in the neighbourhood of Donaues- 
chingen. Mr. Atkinson states that he received acorns of three varieties of 
oaks from a botanist who collected them in the Black Forest; and that he 
had, in 1833, plants of them 6 ft. high, which did not exhibit any difference 
from Q. pedunculata and Q. sessilifldra. The oak is never found of any 
size except in deep loamy soil; and in a low, or only moderately elevated, 
situation. It never grows in marshy soil. In gravelly or sandy soil, or in 
shallow soil on rock, it forms a small stunted tree, and on mountains a 
shrub. In England, it is found on‘soils superincumbent on chalk, sandstone, 
and limestone ; thriving equally well on each, according to the depth and quality 
of the surface soil. In Scotland, it is found in the clefts of granite rocks, 
basalt, sandstone, and every other description of native rock, where the soil 
over it is of any depth, and not saturated with water. In Germany, it has 
been observed by Willdenow that Q. pedunculata requires rather better soil 
than Q. sessiliflora. 
History. The earliest notices which we have of the oak in Britain are in 
the Saxon Chronicles, from which it appears that oak forests were chiefly valued 
for the acorns which they produced, which were generally consumed by swineand 
other domestic animals, but, in years of great scarcity, were eaten byman. “‘ Fa- 
mines,” Burnet observes, “ which of old so continually occurred, history in part 
attributes to the failure of these crops. Long after the introduction of wheat 
and oats and rye, nay, little more than 700 years since, when other food had 
in a great measure superseded the use of mast, considerable reliance was still 
placed thereon, and oaks were chiefly valued for the acorns they produced. 
In the Saxon Chronicles, that year of terrible dearth and mortality, 1116, is de- 
scribed as ‘a very heavy-timed, vexatious, and destructive year,’ and the failure 
of the mast in that season is particularly recorded : —‘ This year, also, was 
so deficient in mast, that there never was heard such in all this land, or 
in Wales.” (Amen. Quer., fol. 1.) About the end of the seventh century, 
King Ina, among the few laws which he enacted to regulate the simple 
