141 WAYSIDE AND WOODLAND BLOOSOMS. 



cupule. Individually these female flowers possess a perianth 

 whose mouth is minutely toothed, within which is a three-sided, 

 three-celled ovary surmounted by three slender spreading 

 styles and stigmas. As the three-cornered fruits grow and 

 ripen the cupule becomes hard and its outer scales spiny ; the 

 four valves part and turn back to disclose and set free the 

 smooth brown nuts or " mast," beloved of swine. In France 

 an oil is expressed from the mast, and the latter is also used as 

 a food for poultry, like its namesake, the Buckwheat (see page 

 1 1 8). It is from these edible qualities that the genus gets its 

 name, derived from the Greek, phago to eat. 



There are many varieties of the Common Beech to be met 

 in plantations, such as the Copper Beech, the Purple Beech, the 

 Variegated Beech, the Cut-leaved Beech, the Crested Beech, 

 the Weeping Beech, the White Beech, etc. 



Sweet Chestnut (Castanea vulgaris). 



On light sandy soils, where little else but fir and heath will 

 grow, one may meet with considerable plantations of the Sweet 

 or Spanish Chestnut. For centuries, and until quite recently, 

 it was considered to be a native ; but it is never found here 

 forming natural forests, and only in the South in favourable 

 situations does it ripen its fruit usually small. Great plausi- 

 bility was given to the supposition that Castanea was a native 

 by the oft-repeated statement that its timber was to be seen in 

 the roof of Westminster Abbey and in other old buildings. 

 An examination of this timber years ago by Dr. Lindley the 

 eminent botanist proved it to be oak, which it closely re- 

 sembles. Again it was claimed as British on account of the 

 great antiquity of certain living trees, such as " the great 

 Chestnut of Tortworth," a name it bore in the reign of Stephen, 

 when it must have been an ancient tree. It is now generally 

 understood that the Chestnut was brought hither by the 



