36 



THE NATURE BOOK 



pointed, and have often, especially the 

 terminal (^nes, attached to them thread- 

 like appendages, the remains of certain 

 leaf-like growths (stipules), from the pre- 



TUKKEY OAK IN SI MMh.K. 



vious season. Its leaf-scars are smaller, 

 elliptical in shape, showing five to seven 

 small leaf-traces, not grouped as with 

 the common Oak, but extended in a curved 

 line. Its leaves are stalked, as are those 

 of the Sessile Oak. The leaf-margins 

 are more deeply and sharply divided, 

 often cut, as it were, down almost to the 

 midrib, with the appearance of having 

 been snipped away. Its flowers are similar 

 to those of the Common Oak, but the 



pollen-bearing catkins are longer and 

 more conspicuous. Its friiii, which 

 scarcely grows at all during the first 

 season, but remains as a tufted bud till 



the following 

 spring, must be 

 looked for then 

 on the wood of 

 the previous 

 year. In the 

 new summer 

 it grows its 

 " mossy " cup, 

 which, sitting 

 firmly on the 

 twig, has the 

 appearance of 

 a doll's pin- 

 cushion. Later, 

 the point of the 

 enclosed fruit 

 emerges out of 

 the centre of 

 the cushion, 

 grows out to a 

 full-sized acorn, 

 ripens to brown- 

 ness, and falls. 



THE HOLM OAK 



The Holm or 

 Holly Oak is 

 a smaller tree 

 and evergreen, 

 rounded, some- 

 what bush-like 

 in appearance. 

 Its leaves are 

 thick and 

 t ough, dark 

 green above, 

 lighter beneath, 

 oval in outhne, 

 often toothed, 

 andshapedmore 

 or less hke those of the Holly. They are 

 spirally arranged on the twigs, and remain 

 attached during two seasons, falling in the 

 spring time. Flowers and fruils arc much 

 like those of the Common Oak, excei)t that 

 the pollen- bearing flowers are lighter in 

 colour, and hang in shorter clusters ; the 

 fruits are relatively longer and sharply 

 pointed, and so fully enclosed within the 

 tightly-fitting cups that little more than 

 their tips emerge. Henry Irving. 



