THE 



FOREST TREES OF GREAT BRITAIN, 



THE OAK. 



QUERCUS ROBUR QUERCTJS SESSILIFLORA. 



Natural Order A-MENTACEJE. 

 Class MONOZCIA. Order PuLYANDRlA. 



As long as ihc Lion holds his fabled place as king of 

 beasts, and the Eagle as king of birds, the sovereignty of 

 British Trees must remain to the Oak. Within the 

 tropics, where Nature performs all her works on a scale 

 of magnificence unrivalled elsewhere, the stately Palm, 

 uplifting its leafy canopy on a shaft two hundred feet in 

 height; the Banyan, forming with its countless trunks a 

 forest in itself; the Baobab, a tree venerable four thousand 

 years ago : each of these may assert its claim to the 

 kingly title. But in England, the country of green fields, 

 in which men labour among their oxen and their sheep ; 

 of lordly parks, with their broad smooth 'lawns and 

 clustering trees ; of narrow church-paths winding along 

 by the side of brilliant streamlets, across flowery meadows, 

 and through woods offering a shade from the heat, and a 

 shelter from the storm, here the Oak reigns paramount. 

 In truth he is a kingly tree, the emblem of majesty, 

 strength, and durability. To what remote ages are we 

 carried back to what varying scenes are we introduced, 

 when we search for the first appearance of this patriarch 

 / B 



