^ 



THE HOENBEAM. 237 



picturesque beauty. The leaves are shaped somewhat like 

 those of the Beech, but are rough and notched at the 

 edge like those of the Elm : they may be distinguished 

 from the former by their roughness, and from the latter 

 by their being plaited when young, and by having nume- 

 rous, regular, strongly-marked veins. Like the Beech, 

 too, they retain their withered foliage on the young 

 branches all the winter. The Hornbeam when young is 

 also very similar in habit to the Beech ; but the latter may 

 immediately be detected, on examination, by its glossy 

 leaves. The flowers appear soon after the leaves, in April, 

 growing in catkins of two kinds, of which the 

 fertile are succeeded by clusters of small angular 

 nuts, each seated at the bottom of a leafy cup. 

 "When these are once formed, the tree which bears them 

 cannot be mistaken, for no other British tree bears fruit 

 of the same kind. The leaf-buds are longer and sharper 

 than those of the Elm. 



Owing to its partaking of several of the properties of 

 other trees, some of the old writers were puzzled to find 

 its place in the system. Pliny probably saw some re- 

 semblance between its clusters of nuts and the keys of 

 the Maple, for he places it among the ten kinds of Maj)le, 

 but adds, that others considered it to belong to a distinct 

 genus. Its second name, Betulus, would seem to imply 

 that it was, by some of the early botanists, considered a 

 kind of Birch, and one of its old English names, " Witch- 

 hasell," points to the supposition that it was a kind of 

 Hazel. Gerard says, "It growes great and very like ujito 

 the elme or wich hasell tree; having a great body, the 

 wood or timber whereof is better for arrowes and shafts, 

 pulleys for mils, and such like devices, than elme or wich 

 hasell ; for in time it waxeth so hard, that the toughnes 

 and hardnes of it may be rather compared unto horn than 

 unto wood ; and therefore it was called hornbeam or hard- 

 beam. The leaves of it are like the elme, saving that 

 they be tenderer : among these hang certain triangled 



