56 CORK-TREE AT SUMMERTOWN. 
been observed. Its place in the genus is between M. fluitans, L., and 
H. uncinatum, Hedw. It has the habit and consistence of the former 
species, but differs from it in having dioicous inflorescence, in the more 
compact cellular tissue of the leaves, and in the longer and more slender 
capsule. With the habit of H. fluitans it has, however, more of the 
structure of HM. uncinatum ; but it may be distinguished from: this 
species by its dioicous flowers, its less curved and non-plicate leaves, 
which have a more compact cellular structure, the much shorter apex 
of the perichztial leaves, and by the absence of the capsular ring, the 
character which suggested its specific name. ne 
The gentlemen named were fortunate to collect in the same locality 
large quantities of Cinclidium Stygium, Swartz, in fruit, a very rare 
British Moss, but which must, like the former, be frequently. over- 
looked from its resemblance to the common Mnium punctatum, Hedw.: 
W. CARRUTHERS. 
CORK-TREE AT SUMMERTOWN, NEAR CORK, IRELAND. 
In Loudon's * Magazine of Natural History” (ii. 91) there is an ae- 
count, with a drawing, of a Cork-tree of large size then (1828) grow- 
ing near the city of Cork. Its girth at 3 feet from the ground was then 
8 feet 10 inches, the “horizontal diameter or spread of the head, mea- - 
suring from the extremities of the branches," was 36 feet. The same 
wood-block is reproduced in Loudon's * Arboretum.’ My friend Mr: 
Isaac Carroll informs me that the tree is still flourishing, and only suf- 
fered from the cold winter of 1860-61 to the extent of having much - 
of its foliage killed. ie 
But the interest attaching to this tree is of a higher order than might 
at first sight be supposed. In the ‘ Bulletin de la Société Botanique de 
France’ (iv. 449) M. J. Gay points out that the Quercus Suber of the 
coasts of the Atlantic in France and Spain is not the tree so called on 
the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. He names it Q. occidentalis, and 
states that its acorns. require fourteen or fifteen months for their matu- 
ration, whilst those of the true Q. Suber become ripe in four or fives: 
the scales of its eupule are not all adpressed as in Q. Suber, but ther 
lower are reflexed ; besides other characters. He states that it is noto — 
