TIMBER TREES. 39 



surrounded by forests of limes, although it is imitated 

 by the Polish Jews. 



The HORNBEAM 1 is a very common tree in Epping 

 Forest, but in some parts of the country it only 

 appears as a hedge plant. It will attain a height of 

 from sixty to seventy feet under favourable condi- 

 tions. The leaves are about the size, and have some- 

 what the form of beech leaves, but are easily distin- 

 guished by the deeply serrated edges. The veins of 

 the leaves proceed direct to the margin, with a cor- 

 responding depression or furrow on the upper sur- 

 face, so that they have a plaited appearance. The 

 seeds have a leafy three-lobed wing, and cannot be 

 confounded with the seeds of any other British tree. 



At the time when geometrical gardening was in 

 vogue the hornbeam was much employed for fences, 

 labyrinths, arched galleries, &c. The remains of 

 work of this kind were until lately to be seen near 

 Ghent in a serpentine walk three hundred feet long, 

 covered with hornbeam trained in vaults. At the 

 same place is Pan's Theatre, wholly formed of horn- 

 oeam trees and bushes, which the shears have snipped 

 and tortured into the appearance of a stage with side 

 scenes, and of front and side boxes, and parterre or 

 pit. The use of hornbeam as a hedge plant, and for 

 " mazes," 



" These many windings form a wilderness, 

 Which hornbeam hedges in trim neatness dress/' 



seems to preponderate in all accounts of the tree, to 



1 Carj)inus betulus. 



