62 Woods ide. 



cup of which is made of those altered bracts, while the cell 

 forms the central nut. 



Tap a branch of one of the trees bearing the male catkins 

 with your stick ; a perfect cloud of dust flies from them. Each 

 particle of this dust is a living atom, ready to fertilize the 

 ovules, and thus to secure the perpetuation of its kind. 

 Truly the primitive acorn cell and this minute pollen grain 

 are infinitesimal beginnings; but from two such minute 

 structures every oak tree has been formed, and the most 

 complex living structures which Nature develops arise 

 similarly from the union of two tiny microscopic cells. 



We have not quite finished with the oak yet. We have 

 referred to its association with the Druids, but other his- 

 torical associations also cluster round it, some of which are 

 mere shadows in the dim mists of antiquity. At Winchester 

 is a famous table, 18 feet in diameter, reputed to be the 

 " round table " around which sat King Arthur and his 

 famous knights. This table consists of a single transverse 

 section of a single tree. Near York, the famous Cowthorpe 

 oak holds seventy people in its hollow trunk, and has a 

 circumference at its base of seventy-six feet; and many 

 others scattered over various parts of the country approach 

 this in size. 



Here is a very old tree, judging from its appearance. 

 How seamed and scarred is its trunk ! How thick the bark 

 around it ! This reminds us that a closely allied species 

 grows in Spain, the bark of which is stripped off once in 

 every eight or ten years to supply us with cork. Generally 

 trees will stand about six or eight of these strippings, which, 

 however, finally weaken them very much, and then decay 

 sets in. 



