144 APPENDIX. 



THE BRITISH OAK 



(Quercus Itobur). 



Of this there are two distinct species the Pedunculate 

 Oak (Quercus pedunculata) and the Sessile or Durmast Oak 

 (Quercus sessiliflora). Babington says: "It is generally 

 supposed by foresters that there are two, if not three, species 

 of oak in Britain. I have failed in learning how 

 to distinguish them." It has been frequently stated that 

 individuals of the two species may be found approximating 

 to each other in one or the features usually relied on to 

 distinguish them from each other, viz., the regularly-lobed 

 stalked leaves of the Durmast oak and the irregularly- 

 leaved stalkless of the Pedunculate oak. This and the more 

 obvious distinction that the Durmast oak bears stalkless 

 flowers and acorns, while the Pedunculate oak bears flowers 

 and acorns on stalks two or three inches long, are well-known 

 distinctions, but it may also be noticed that the back of the 

 leaf in the Durmast is always more or less downy or hairy 

 along the mid-rib, that of the Pedunculate being quite 

 smooth. Against Don's figment of an intermediate species 

 may be set the fact that the two species flower at different 

 times, rendering the occurrence of hybrids exceedingly 

 improbable. As a forest tree the Durmast is greatly 

 superior, both in beauty and timber, and yet British 

 planters still wrongly give the preference to the Pedunculate 

 species. 



BELLADONNA POISONING. 



In the "West Sussex Gazette " of July, 1902, is the 

 following: "A fatal case of poisoning arising from the 

 effects of eating berries of the Belladonna plant has occurred 

 at Stansted, Sussex. Several young children gathered some 

 of the berries and eat them. One boy, eleven years of age, 

 named Leonard Archibald Glass, the son of a journeyman 

 painter, who was on holidays in the neighbourhood, 

 subsequently died, and three other children, a boy, aged six, 

 and two girls, aged five, were for a time seriously ill. They 

 apparently owed their escape from death to the fact that 

 they had eaten less freely or the glossy purple berries. At 

 an inquest held on Saturday evening on the lad Glass the 

 jury returned a verdict of accidental poisoning, and ex- 

 pressed a hope that the public would take serious warning 

 of the poisonous nature or Belladonna berries. " 



