1850 ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM. PART III. 



evergreen ; thoiigli the leaves, after withering, generally remain on 

 the tree through a great part of the winter. However slight the 

 difference may be between these subvarieties, those who collect 

 oaks cannot do wrong in procuring plants of each of them ; all of 

 them forming trees of free growth, and of very great beauty, as may 

 be seen by the speimens referred to in the arboretum of Messrs. 

 Loddiges. 



** Foliage suhevergreen. Leaves dentate. Acorns with bristly Cups. 



The leaves remain on the tree through a great part of the winter, retain- 

 ing their vitality and greenness. In mild winters, the leaves do 

 not begin to drop till March or April ; and even in severe winters, 

 a part of them, on the sheltered side of the tree, continue green till 

 near the end of that month. 



i Q. C. 8 fulhamensis ; Q. C. dentata Wats. Bend. Brit., t. 93. ; Q. C. 

 hjbrida var. dentata 52f^ The Fulham Oak. See^g. 1710., and 

 the plates of this tree in our last Volume. — -^ 

 Leaves alternate, ovate-elliptic, largely dentated; 

 the dents obtuse-angular, their sides excurved, and 

 their vertices shortly mucronate. (Wats.) This 

 is a fine broad-leaved suhevergreen variety, of 

 which there is a magnificent specimen in the Ful- 

 ham Nursery. The plates of the Fulham oak in our 

 last Volume are portraits of this tree ; the one 

 taken in November, 1836, and the other on May 

 1. 1837. It is 75 ft. high; the diameter of the 

 space covered by the branches 54 ft., and the 

 diameter of the trunk, at 3 ft. from the ground, 

 3 ft. 10 in. There is a tree of the same variety 

 at Mamhead, near Exeter, planted by Mr. Lu- 

 combe (the originator of the Lucombe oak, and 

 the grandfather of the present Mr. Pince of the 

 Exeter Nursery), when he was gardener at Mam- 

 head, which is 80 ft. high, with a trunk 4 ft. 6 in. in diameter at 1 ft. 

 from the ground. (See Gard. Mag., vol. xi. p. 128.) There is a 

 great similarity between the foliage of this tree and that of the Ful- 

 ham oak, as will be seen by ^g. 1711.; in which the right-hand 

 figure is a fac-simile outline, of the natural size, of a leaf of the Fulham 

 oak ; and the left-hand figure is the outline of a leaf of the Exeter, or 

 old Lucombe, oak, also of the natural size. But, however alike the 

 trees may be in foliage, they are very different in their habits of 

 growth ; the Fulham oak being a branching tree, with a round head, 

 and a comparatively smooth, though still somew hat corky, bark ; and 

 the old Lucombe oak growing with a straight erect trunk, regularly 

 furnished with branches, and forming, both in its young and old 

 states, a conical spiry-topped tree, with a more rough and corky bark 

 than the other. In the Fulham Nursery there is a full-grown tree 

 of the old Lucombe oak, as well as one of the Fulham oak, of both 

 of which portraits are given in our last Volume, which strongly dis- 

 play the characteristic difference between the two trees. The age 

 and origin of the Fulham oak are unknown; but Mr. Smithers, an 

 old man who has been employed in the Fulham Nursery from his 

 youth, and who remembers the tree above 45 years, says that 

 it always went by the name of the Fulham oak, and that he under- 

 stood it to have been raised there from seed. We have examined 

 the tree at its collar, and down to its main roots, several feet under 

 ground ; and, from the uniform texture, and thick corky character 

 of the bark, we feel satisfied that it is not a grafted tree. In fine 

 seasons, this variety produces abundance of acorns, from which many 



