2006 ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM. PART III. 
1934. 
to 9 ft.in cireumference, even in the largest trees; it is also generally much 
thicker at the base than at 1 ft. or 2 ft. from the ground. The head is large, 
tufted, and consists of a confused mass of branches, among which it is almost 
impossible to trace the leader. The leaves somewhat resemble those of the 
elm, but are smoother : they are doubly serrated, pointed, plaited when young, 
and have numerous parallel, transverse, hairy ribs; their colour is a darkish 
green, changing to a russet brown in autumn; and they remain on the tree, 
like those of the beech, till spring. The buds are rather long and pointed. 
The flowers appear at the same time as the leaves. The male catkins are loose, 
scaly, of a yellowish colour, and about 2 in. or 3 in. long; the female catkins 
are much smaller, and, when young, are covered with close brownish scales, 
which gradually increase, and form “unequally 3-lobed, sharply serrated, 
veiny, dry, pale green bracteas, each enveloping an angular nut, scarcely bigger 
than a grain of barley.”’ (Smith.) These nuts ripen in October, and fall with 
the capsules. The branches of the hornbeam, says Marshall, “are long, 
flexible, and crooked ; yet in their general appearance they very much resem- 
ble those of the beech : indeed, there is so great a likeness between these two 
trees, especially in the shrubby underwood state, that it would be difficult 
to distinguish them at a first glance, were it not for that glossy varnish with 
which the leaves of the beech are strongly marked.” (Plant. and Rur. Orn., 
vol. ii. p. 51.) |The wood is very tough and horny, and the bark smooth and 
whitish, or light grey spotted with white; and on old trees it is generally 
