368 PECULIARITIES IN GROAVTil OF HAWTHORN-TREE. 
that 1 had the opportunity of seeing the Eev. C. A. Johns's interesting 
little work on ' The Forest Trees of Great Britain/ I find that he 
there notices Mr. Jesse's remarks upon the Hawthorn, and points out 
that the way to decide whether Mr. Jesse's view was correct or not, 
would be to cut down one of the trees, and examine whether the wood 
is arranged in complete circles around a central pith, or in segments 
of circles only without a pith. 
I am far from implying that in all cases where we perceive old 
Hawthorn-trees to have a number of stems, these must have onginated 
from division of a common parent stem in the manner I have described. 
It no doubt often happens, especially in old hedgerows, that the nume- 
rous stems which are seen to spring from one root have been distinct 
from the fii'st, they having sprung up as shoots or suckers when the 
parent stem has been cut down. I have before me a section of one 
of the segmental stems which I have been describing. There is, of 
course, no central pith, and the medullary rays are seen to diverge in a 
fan-like form from that part of the circumference where w^e find decayed 
wood instead of bark, and which represents a portion of the original 
cylindrical stem. On the opposite side of this section there are several 
of the secondary ribs of which I have spoken, and it will be seen that 
the medullary rays near the medial line of each of these ribs take a 
nearly straight course outward from the original centre of the stem; 
whilst the rays to the right and left of these curve away from them, 
diverging more and more as they approach the bark. The layers of 
wood in each rib, or fluting, have a crescent-like form, show^ing that 
growth has taken place most extensively in the line of the straight 
medullary rays (L e. directly outw^ard from the original centre), whilst 
it has been more and more feeble to the right and left of this medial 
line, until it has at last altogether ceased, and allowed a seam or channel 
to exist between each rib. Had the wood been uniformly deposited on 
the circumference of each rib, no such channels could have existed, 
the ribs would have encroached upon and have obliterated them. 
As to the question " why do the woody (or fibro-vascular) bundles 
of the stem thus cease to grow at some points whilst they increase 
rapidly at others ?" I am sorry to say that I have nothing very satis- 
factory to offer in reply. After examining many old trees, I have 
certainly found that the ribs or columnar projections may in most 
instances, perhaps in all, be traced to the point where some vigorous 
