326 QUERCUS 



Q. Suber occurs north and south of the Mediterranean. Q. occidentalis 

 is hardier, and no doubt many of the cork oaks in Britain are of this 

 form. 



The bark of this tree (which affords the best distinction between it and 

 other evergreen oaks) produces the common cork of everyday use. It is 

 stripped from the trunk and chief branches every eight or ten years. Portugal 

 is the great centre of the cork industry. As a tree for gardens, the cork oak 

 is only adapted for the southern and milder parts of Britain. The finest trees 

 are in the south-western counties, where there are several 50 to 60 ft. high. 

 The largest I know of near London is in H.R.H. the Duchess of Albany's 

 grounds at Claremont ; this has a trunk about 14 ft. in girth, but is past its 

 best. The species is supposed to have been introduced about the end of the 

 seventeenth century. 



Q. TOZA, Bosc. PYRENEAN OAK. 



A deciduous tree up to 70 ft. high, with slender, often pendulous branches ; 

 young shoots densely clothed with grey down. Leaves very variable in size, 

 from 3 to 9 ins. long, i^ to 4^ ins. wide, conspicuously and deeply lobed ; the 

 lobes four to seven on each "side, oblong, rounded or pointed, the larger ones 

 often coarsely round-toothed ; dark glossy green, and with sparse, minute, 

 . starry down above ; grey and felted beneath ; stalk downy, J to f in. long. 

 Acorns about f in. long, produced two to four together on a downy, erect 

 stalk | to i^ ins. long, about half enclosed by a cup with closely appressed 

 downy scales. 



Native of S.W. Europe ; introduced, according to Loudon, in 1822. It is 

 a very distinct and elegant oak, well marked by the deeply and pinnately lobed 

 leaves, and by their dense, close felt beneath. The leaves, however, show 

 much variation in size and character of lobing. In its velvety downiness it 

 resembles Q. macranthera, which has more but shallower lobes. Q. Toza 

 produces long pendulous shoots under cultivation, and in a young state is 

 extremely liable to be broken by autumnal gales. According to Elwes, there 

 is a tree 66 ft. high at Clonmannon, Co. Wicklow, with a trunk 9 ft. in 

 girth. The so-called var. SPLENDENS is merely a big-leaved form. There 

 is at Tortworth an interesting hybrid between Toza and pedunculata, the 

 leaves much more minutely felted beneath, and the fruit-stalks much 

 longer. 



Q. TURNERI, Willdenow. TURNER'S OAK. 



A supposed hybrid between Q. I lex. and Q. pedunculata, said to have been 

 raised in the nursery of Mr Spencer Turner, Holloway Down, Essex, in the 

 latter half of the eighteenth century. It is a tree of spreading habit, growing 

 sometimes over 50 ft. in height, with foliage which persists through the winter 

 until February or March, according to the mildness or otherwise of the 

 season. But even after the mildest winters the tree, so far as I have seen, is 

 always destitute of foliage fo* some weeks. The young shoots are clothed 

 with a dense pale down. Leaves leathery, oblong-obovate, mostly rounded 

 but unequal at the base, bluntish at the apex, and with four to six rounded 

 lobes on each margin ; T\ to 4^ ins. long, f to if ins. wide ; dark green and 

 smooth above, paler beneath and downy at the base, also on the midrib and 

 veins. Acorns borne usually one or two on a stalk i to 2 ins. long ; they are 

 each about f in. long, the lower half enclosed in a cup with downy, erect, 

 appressed scales. 



The above is a description of Turner's oak as usually represented in 

 gardens, but it does not appear to be quite the same as the tree originally 



