554 '^^^ Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



ovate, unequal and usually cordate at the base, rounded at the apex, variable in 

 pubescence, dark - green above, light - green beneath ; nerves usually four pairs ; 

 margin with three or four pairs of shallow lobes, which are minutely and irregularly 

 dentate, the teeth being rounded or acute ; petiole i to :^ inch, pubescent. Male 

 flowers solitary ; calyx five-partite ; stamens ten, as long as the calyx. Fruit : 

 involucre four-partite, each lobe with three to four transverse reddish scales ; nuts 

 three, the central one two-winged, the lateral pair three-winged. 

 Two distinct forms occur : 



1. Var. sublobata, DC Petiole and upper surface of the leaf glabrescent ; 

 lower surface glabrous except on the nerves, which are clothed with long appressed 

 hairs. 



2. Var. uliginosa, DC Leaves pubescent on both surfaces with minute erect 

 hairs. 



This species was introduced in 1 843, as mentioned in our account of N. betuloides, 

 but it is doubtful if any of the original plants are still living. The only specimen 

 which we have discovered is a bushy tree, about 15 feet high, which is growing 

 alongside a fine tree of N. betuloides at Hafodunos, Denbighshire. Colonel Sandbach 

 believes it to be about thirty years old. 



Plants raised from seed, collected by Elwes in Chile in 1902, are now in cultiva- 

 tion at Kew,'' in a peat-bed, and have attained about 6 feet in height. They are 

 vigorous in growth, and have passed through the severe frosts of 1906- 1907 without 

 injury, and look as if they might grow to be trees of considerable size. (A. H.) 



Distribution of the South American Beeches 



In extra-tropical South America, the beeches are the dominant trees, extending 

 from a point on the west coast of Chile about lat. 33, southward to Patagonia and 

 Tierra del Fuego, and crossing the Andes into Argentina. The best account of the 

 Chilean beeches is given by Reiche,' from whom, supplemented by my own 

 observations in 1 901 -1902, I take the following particulars. 



The most northerly species is N. obliqua, which extends on the coast up to about 

 lat. 33', but in the extreme north does not form forest except in the interior valleys. 

 About lat. 35 it is the principal tree in the forest which formerly clothed the lower 

 slopes of the Andes, but which is now fast vanishing before the attacks of man. 

 The tree is called Roble Pellin by the Spaniards, and grows to a large size with a 

 tall straight trunk, attaining a height of 1 20 feet or more, and a girth of 20 to 30 feet. 

 In the forest country, which commences south of the Maule River, it is mixed with 

 N. Dombeyi ; and these two species form the principal timber supplies of Chile, and 

 are largely cut for house-building, railway sleepers, and other purposes. Some 

 cargoes of this timber have lately been imported into England, under the name of 

 Chilean Oak ; and by the courtesy of the Great Western Railway Company, I have 

 received one of these sleepers, which has a dense reddish wood, not at all resembling 



* Prod. xvi. 2, 120 (1864). De Candolle's var. bicrenata is Nothofagiis /umi/io. 

 ' Cf. ICew Bull. 1906, p. 381. ' Beitrdge Kenntniss ChiUn. Buchen (Valparaiso, 1897). 



