174-6 ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM. PART III. 



cially along the Torridge, from Torrington to ,&&-> 



Bideford ; and about Clovelly. In those parts .'^^^^^i; 



is a variety with the leaf of a very large size 1587 



(see Jig. 1574. in p. 1738.); and I recollect 

 a tree in Clovelly Park with all the leaves oddly 

 recurved at the edges, so as to have a convex 

 disk. I recollect, also, some very ancient pol- 

 lards, with leaves of great size, near Inver- 

 castlie, on the Ross-shire side of Strath Oikell. 

 I think the species is common in Scotland. I 

 presume an oak with a long, narrow, ragged 

 leaf, which I happen to have seen only at Chep- 

 stow Castle, where there are several trees, pro- 

 bably all planted, and where it is called Maiden 

 oak, is a var. of Q,. sessiliflora." ( W. B. Jan. 

 1837.) Mr. Bree says that in some parts of 

 North Wales, and in the neighbourhood of the 

 lakes in the north of England, Q. sessiliflora is 

 the more prevailing kind of oak ; constituting, 

 as it were, the staple growth of the country, almost to the exclusion of 

 Q. pedunculata. Great part of the Forest of Ardennes, in Warwickshire, 

 he says, consists almost entirely of Q. sessiliflora, of which there are 

 specimens which exhibit marks of great antiquity. (Gard. Mag., vol. xii. 

 p. 572.) Q. sessiliflora is said by Bosc to be the more abundant species 

 in the forests in the neighbourhood of Paris, where it forms a lower and 

 more spreading tree than Q. pedunculata; which, however, is said to be 

 the more common oak of France. In Germany, if we may judge from the 

 name for Q. sessiliflora, gemeine eiche, it would appear to be the more com- 

 mon ; and we are informed by German gardeners that this is the case. We 

 have seen both sorts in the Black Forest, in the neighbourhood of Donaues- 

 chingen. Mr. Atkinson states that he received acorns of three varieties of 

 oaks from a botanist who collected them in the Black Forest ; and that he 

 had, in 1833, plants of them 6ft. high, which did not exhibit any difference 

 from Q. pedunculata and Q. sessiliflora. The oak is never found of any 

 size except in deep loamy soil; and in a low, or only moderately elevated, 

 situation. It never grows in marshy soil. In gravelly or sandy soil, or in 

 shallow soil on rock, it forms a small stunted tree, and on mountains a 

 shrub. In England, it is found on soils superincumbent on chalk, sandstone, 

 and limestone ; thriving equally well on each, according to the depth and quality 

 of the surface soil. In Scotland, it is found in the clefts of granite rocks, 

 basalt, sandstone, and every other description of native rock, where the soil 

 over it is of any depth, and not saturated with water. In Germany, it has 

 been observed by Willdenow that Q. pedunculata requires rather better soil 

 than Q. sessiliflora. 



History. The earliest notices which we have of the oak in Britain are in 

 the Saxon Chronicles, from which it appears that oak forests were chiefly valued 

 for the acorns which they produced, which were generally consumed by swine and 

 other domestic animals,but, in years of great scarcity, were eaten by man. " Fa- 

 mines," Burnet observes, "which of old so continually occurred, history in part 

 attributes to the failure of these crops. Long after the introduction of wheat 

 and oats and rye, nay, little more than 700 years since, when other food had 

 in a great measure superseded the use of mast, considerable reliance was still 

 placed thereon, and oaks were chiefly valued for the acorns they produced. 

 In the Saxon Chronicles, that year of terrible dearth and mortality, 1 1 16, is de- 

 scribed as * a very heavy-timed, vexatious, and destructive year,' and the failure 

 of the mast in that season is particularly recorded : ' This year, also, was 

 so deficient in mast, that there never was heard such in all this land, or 

 in Wales." (Amcen. Quer., fol. 1.) About the end of the seventh century, 

 King Ina, among the few laws which he enacted to regulate the simple 



