THE OAKS WITH ACORNS. 171 



prettily in the sunny South. Its small, leathery leaf 

 remains green long after those of other trees are 

 brown and sere. The tree has also the advantage of 

 being a rapid grower. One of its most distinguished 

 relatives, the English oak {Quercus Robur), is hardly 

 more interesting or beautiful. Certainly the contrast 

 between these two trees of the same family could 

 not be greater. There is hardly a point of resem- 

 blance between them. The great aged oaks of Eng- 

 land * are nursed and guarded with something like 

 reverential awe. Their historical associations are 

 cherished records. But the American willow oak is a 

 tree without a history. Nevertheless, it is certainly a 

 modern sylvan beauty, refreshingly novel, and decid- 

 edly unconventional. 



The willow oak and the three species which pre- 

 cede it complete the list of common leather-leaved 

 oaks, some of which are nearly or quite evergreen in 

 the South. 



* Some of these English oaks were planted about the time of 

 the Norman conquest, 1066. Cowthrop oak, Cowthrop, Yorkshire, 

 is seventy-eight feet in circuit at the ground, and is at least eight- 

 een hundred years old. The Cowthrop oak is on the estate of 

 Lord Petre ; it has a girth of sixty feet, and previous to the de- 

 struction of its largest branch by a storm in 1718, it spread over 

 half an acre. There is one in Dorsetshire said to be its equal in 

 age, and one near Fountain Abbey, Ripon, in Yorkshire, is cer- 

 tainly over twelve hundred years old. 



