CLASS XXI. ORDER VII. ] CASTANEA. 1211 
1. C. vulga'ris, Lam. (Fig. 1462.) Spanish Chesnut. Leaves oblong 
lanceolate, acuminate, with mucronated serratures, smooth on both 
sides. 
Hooker, British Flora, ed. 4. vol. i. p. 348.—Lindley, Synopsis, p. 
239.—Fagus castanea, Linn.—English Botany, t. 886.—English 
Flora, vol. iv. p. 151. 
A stately tree, rivalling in beauty and duration the British Oak. 
The trunk and larger branches are clothed with thick deeply cleft 
bark, the branches widely spreading, with the smaller ramifications 
clothed with smooth polished bark. Leaves numerous, five to eight 
inches long, elliptic lanceolate, with an acuminated point, smooth, 
bright green above, paler beneath, with a prominent mid-rib and 
lateral veins, terminating in mucronated serratures. Barren flowers 
in long slender catkins, with numerous clusters of flowers, irregularly 
arranged, the perianth inconspicuous, with numerous yellow stamens, 
having slender filaments and two celled anthers. Fertile flowers one 
or several, more or less clustered, on a short stalk. Perianth urn- 
shaped, becoming large, globose, and very spiny. Styles about six, 
with long smooth erect stigmas, often a purplish colour. Nut large, 
sub-rotundate or ovate, its skin smooth, polished, dark brown, with a 
broad scar at the base, by which it was attached. 
Habitat.--Woods in the Southern parts of England; apparently 
wild. 
Tree ; flowering in May. 
The Chesnut is one of the most noble and majestic trees of the 
forest, and rivals, if it does not surpass, in durability the British 
Oak. It is highly ornamental as a forest tree and for plantations in 
parks. The great Chesnut at Tortworth, Gloucestershire, (formerly 
Tamworth), has been a boundary mark of the Manor of Tamworth 
probably for more than a thousand years; it was referred to in the 
time of King Stephen, a.p, 1185, as “the great Chestnut of Tam 
worth,” so that it is supposed to have been growing at the time of 
Egbert, the Saxon, av., 827, the “ Beginning of the Kingdom of 
England.” This venerable monument of antiquity measures about 
fifty-two feet in circumference ; is still flourishing in its “ green old 
age, and will probably still rear up its venerable head gay in its 
vernal dress, while the frail bodies of the proud, the rich, and the 
poor of this generation will be mouldering into dust. But the largest 
Chesnut tree of which we have any account is the celebrated Castagno 
di Cento Cavalli, the ruins of which are still in existence on Mount 
Etna, in Sicily. This tree is said to have measured in its circum- 
ference one hundred and sixty feet, and that within the hollow of its 
trunk the peasants have erected a house wherein they have an oven 
to dry Chesnuts and other fruit. It obtained the name of Castagno 
di Cento Cavalli, from the circumstance of its having given shelter to 
Tak 
