Common Oak 337 



Yorkshire and the county of Durham have all been Q. sessiliflora, which is very 

 scarce in the south. There are some trees of it at Kenwood, the Earl of Mans- 

 field's, near Highgate, which I believe to be one of the oldest woods near London, 

 and a greater part of the Q. sessiliflora appears to be trees from old stools." To 

 this the Secretary, Mr. G. Bentham, adds a note, as follows : " Mr. Atkinson's 

 opinion on this subject is confirmed in a remarkable manner by the discovery that 

 the oait in an extensive submarine forest near Hastings is Q. sessiliflora." 



Brown Oak 



In a paper on British timber which I read before the Surveyors' Institution 

 in February 1904,* I called attention to a form of oak timber, known as "brown 

 oak," which does not appear to have been much noticed by any previous writer.'' 

 Though after very careful investigation I have failed to ascertain with certainty the 

 causes which produce it, I am inclined to believe that it is not, as some have 

 thought, caused by a fungus ; though spores of some fungoid mycelium are often 

 found running through it ; but that the change of colour is produced, especially on 

 certain soils and in certain localities, by age. And though I have evidence that in 

 exceptional cases the heartwood of quite young oaks is brown,' the majority of the 

 trees which produce this beautiful and valuable wood are in an incipient stage of 

 decay, and often hollow, leaving only a shell of more or less sound wood. The 

 change of colour in some trees commences at the ground and extends upwards, or 

 less commonly begins in the upper part and extends downwards. No one can be 

 certain, without boring or felling the tree, whether the wood is brown or how far the 

 colour may extend ; but if the tree is allowed to stand too long after it has become 

 brown it loses its " nature," to use a carpenter's expression, and is often so 

 shaky and full of cracks that it is of little use. The sapwood always remains 

 of the normal colour. But when a brown oak of good rich colour contains 

 sound and solid timber it is superior to any wood I know for the interior 

 decoration of houses, and for the making of sideboards and other heavy 

 furniture. 



Until about fifty years ago this wood was little valued in England, and I am 

 told that on the Duke of Bedford's estate its use was prohibited in building contracts 

 because it was supposed to be unsound. Even now it is hardly known or recognised 

 as valuable except in certain parts of England, and is often sold far below its real 

 value by inexperienced persons. But the Americans have created such a demand 



> Trans. Surveyors' Institution, vol. xxxvi. pt. vii. 



^ Laslett, ed. 2, p. 96, only says of it, "and even when in a state of decay or in its worst stage of 'foxiness,' the 

 cabinetmaker prizes it for its deep red colour, and works it up in a variety of ways." 



' Mr. Alexander Howard tells me that he has seen a group of young oaks felled in Essex, which were not more than I2 to 

 18 inches in diameter, all perfectly sound, in which the wood was of a rich brown all through the trunk up to and beyond the 

 first main branch. He purchased near Chelmsford a very fine oak which had no less than five secondary trunks growing out 

 of the butt, all of a very rich brown colour, and a number of younger trees growing near it in the same park also proved to be 

 of the same colour. Thus it seems that though the conditions of the soil have some influence, yet the colour may in some cases 

 be inherited. Mr. Howard has inquired for many years but never heard of a brown oak on the continent, and believes it to be 

 only found in this country. Some woodmen in Essex have thought that the trees which carry their leaves longest in winter 

 produced " red oak," which is the local term for brown oak, but I could get no definite proof of the truth of this idea. 

 II ' T 



