158 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



My attention was called by Mr. R. Anderson of Cirencester to a very remarkable 

 tree growing in a part of Earl Bathurst's woods about two miles from Cirencester, 

 known as the Dear Bit. The tree, though it has lost some of its principal branches, 

 is still, as our illustration shows (Plate 49), a very handsome one, and in size 

 exceeds any other of the kind of which we have a record, either in this country or 

 on the Continent. It is, as nearly as I can measure it, about 75 feet high by 11 feet 

 in girth. It grows on dry shallow soil of the Oolite formation, and is close to a ride, 

 which leads me to suppose that it was planted perhaps at the time when the park 

 was laid out. It is near the north-east edge of the wood, and open to the south- 

 west. I have never seen the flowers of this tree, which bears fruit only in favour- 

 able seasons near the ends of its uppermost branches, and as the birds are fond of 

 it, and even in good years many of the seeds are immature, I have not until 1904 

 been able to procure any. A few of these have now produced small plants, 



I have been unable to find any self-sown seedlings near this tree, and though 

 there are one or two good-sized P. torminalis in another part of the park, prob- 

 ably planted, none of them approach it in size. As to the possible age of this 

 tree, I can only say that the drive on the edge of which it grows has, as I am told by 

 Mr. Anderson, certainly been in existence over 100 years, and the bank was covered 

 with old beech, which were cut in 1892. The tree has become one-sided from the 

 pressure of a beech which until then closed it in on the south-west side, where it is 

 now open. As these beeches were 1 50 years old or more, the tree may be now from 

 150 to 200 years old, and it seems very probable that the person who designed this 

 park had seen the tree at Fontainebleau, and introduced it when Oakley Park was 

 planted by the ancestor of the present Earl Bathurst in Queen Anne's reign, 



(H. J. E.) 



