284 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



Varieties of Qvercvs pedunculata 



I. VdiT./asiigiata, Spach, Hist. Vdg. xi. 151 (1842), Fastigiate or Cypress Oak. 



Quercus fastigiata, Lamarck, Eneyc. L 725 (1783). 

 Quercus pyramidalis, Gmelin, J^. Bad. iii. 699 (1808). 

 Quircus cupressoides, Hort. 



The Cypress Oak has the branches pointing upwards, which gives the tree 

 an irregular fastigiate shape ; but in foliage and fruit it does not differ from the 

 common oak. It has been found wild in the south-west of France, in the Landes 

 and Pyrenees, in the provinces of Galicia and Navarre in Spain, and in Calabria. A 

 famous tree of this variety stood in 1876 near the village of Haareshausen, close to 

 Babenhausen in Hesse, which was supposed to be 280 years old, and it then 

 measured 100 feet high and 10 feet in girth. ^ It had been celebrated in Germany since 

 the middle of the eighteenth century, and stood originally in the forest, now cleared 

 away. From this tree nearly all the German trees, and possibly many English and 

 French trees of this variety, have been derived. This variety comes true from seed 

 to some extent ; of thirty acorns sown at Nancy, twelve produced pyramidal oaks, 

 the remainder reverting to the ordinary type. At White Knights, of several 

 hundred acorns sown by the gardener, only five came true to the fastigiate type. 

 Elwes has raised plants from seed which in youth at least are more or less fastigiate. 

 The tree at White Knights is a remarkably good specimen, being 81 feet high 

 and 8 feet in girth, and is beautifully symmetrical in shape. Sir Herbert Maxwell 

 tells us that there are two trees at Dawick, Peeblesshire. Other fine specimens 

 are at Knole Park, Kent, where Elwes measured one 66 feet by 5 feet ; and at 

 Hardwick, Suffolk, where he saw one 61 feet by 4 feet 10 inches. A very well shaped 

 tree of this variety at Melbury Park (Plate 80) measures 65 feet by 3 feet 8 inches, 

 and has the form of a well-grown Lombardy poplar. But none of these are equal 

 to a tree growing at the Trianon at Versailles, which Elwes saw in 1905, and which 

 measures about 90 feet by 10 feet.^ Several sub- varieties have appeared in various 

 nurseries, and have received names, but as we have seen none of these in 

 cultivation we do not think them worth recording. 



2. Var. pendula, Loudon, Arb. et Frut. Brit. iii. 1732 (1838), Weeping Oak. 

 In this variety the branches are pendulous. The most famous tree of this 

 kind is at Moccas Court in Herefordshire ; but it has now almost ceased to 

 weep, and Elwes would not have been able to distinguish it if it had not been 

 pointed out to him. The present owner, the Rev. Sir George Cornewall, writes 

 that " weeping oaks are far from uncommon in Herefordshire," and showed 



' PeUold, Deutschen Keichsanztiger, quoted in Card. Chron. v. 51 (1876). See also Card. Chron. xix. 179, fig. 26 

 (1883), where Mr. Wissenbach states that the oldest and finest specimens in Germany occur in the royal park at Wilhelmshohe, 

 near Cassel, the best measuring 100 feet high and 8 feet 6 inches in girth. It is lOO years old, being a graft of the original 

 tree in the forest near Babenhausen. An earlier account of the latter tree is given by a correspondent in Card. Chron. 1842, 

 P- 36. 



' A group of fine trees of this variety, said to be more than 100 feet in height, is reported to be growing in the park of 

 Verdais in Haute Garonne. Woods and Forests, 105 (1884). 



