NEWER DECIDUOUS TREES AND SHRUBS. 465 



Quercus. OAK. 



We have but few additions to make to this genus, and these 

 rather of the fancy order. 



Q. laciniata (Cut-leaf oak), known also as Q. salicifolia and 

 Q. filicifolia, is a curious variety, with leaves deeply cut at the 

 edges and laciniated. 



Q. foil is variegatis (Variegated oak), both gold and silver, 

 with leaves variegated with white or yellow and occasional 

 streaks of red; well grown, quite showy and ornamental. 



Q. purpurea (Purple oak), has the foot-stalks of the leaves 

 and its young shoots quite distinctly tinged with purple even 

 the young leaves, when they first appear, are very dark, as 

 much so as the Purple beech, and, like this tree, becoming 

 greener as the season advances. 



But of all the newer varieties recently introduced here, the 

 Q. pendula (Weeping oak), is the most distinctive and remark- 

 able. We have as yet, we believe, no trees of any size in the 

 country. The largest tree known is at Moccas court, in Here- 

 fordshire, England, which Mr. Loudon (Arbo : Brit. vol. 3, 

 page 1732), describes as one of the most extraordinary trees 

 of the oak kind in existence ; the height of the trunk to the first 

 branch is eighteen feet, total height of the trunk seventy-five feel, 

 with branches reaching from about the middle of its height to 

 within seven feet of the ground, and hanging down like cords ; 

 many of these branches are thirty feet long and no thicker in 

 any part of their length than a common wagon rope. There is 

 another variety of Weeping oak to be found in our nurseries, 

 and which we have had here, but the inclination of the branches 

 is more rigid and less pendulous and graceful than the Moccas 

 oak, and we much doubt if we have ever had this species here. 



To persons curious in trees, or who are desirous of making 

 plantations of the many dwarfs at present quite the fashion in 

 England, we would suggest here two varieties of oak interest- 

 ing for this purpose ; viz., Quercus humilis (the low growing 

 oak), a native of Europe, where it never exceeds a height of 

 three to four feet, and in the Landes near Bordeaux, not over 

 one foot; and Q. pumila (an American dwarf), which seldom 

 exceeds twenty inches. 

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