366 Foreign Notices : — Spain. 



jobs, the contractors were compelled to take the inner bark as well as the 

 outer, which forms the cork. This inner rind is only fit for tanning, and 

 was an encumbrance to the parties, who had no demand for it, and were 

 obliged to go abroad to seek for purchasers. The evil is, that the stripping it 

 kills the tree ; so that this contract, for the sake of a paltry temporary gain, 

 will be the cause of a national loss of a prodigious number of valuable trees. 

 The form of this tree is much more beautiful than that of the encina, as it 

 grows with more freedom, and, in the districts suited to it, attains a great height. 

 It is little seen in the middle region, excepting in Estremadura, and in a wood 

 near Talavera de la Reyna, where I believe it is mixed with the encina. 1 can- 

 not positively assert it to be so, having passed it rapidly ; but, if it be, this is 

 its northern limit. 



" A noble species is associated with the ^Suber, in the neighbourhood of 

 Gibraltar, where I met with it in ascending through a forest to the left of the 

 common route to Cadiz, above Los Barrios, We were compelled to quit the 

 road on account of the floods, which made the regular line impassable, and to 

 scramble up amidst masses of sandstone, where it was growing with the 5'uber 

 and i?hododendron, and other beautiful plants. This species, one of the 

 finest of the European trees, and which has not yet found its way into our 

 nurseries, was pronounced by Dr. Lindley to be the Quercus australis of Link, 

 The leaf is very large and ovate, with small indentures. The acorns might be 

 easily procured in October, or the beginning of November, from Gibraltar, 

 where the species could be preserved, and gradually removed to a more 

 northern climate. The Quercus coccifera, or kermes oak, is found in vast 

 quantities in the southern division, and as far north as near the central line of 

 Spain; but I think it does not pass the Guadarrama range. There are said to 

 be two kinds ; but it is not improbable that the spray, or young shoots, of 

 other species, which sometimes resemble it, may have caused this idea. 



" Deciduous Oaks. The uplands of Castile, the Alcarria, and Guadalaxara 

 districts, the neighbourhood of Leon and of Valladolid, at a corresponding 

 elevation with that of the encina, offer an oak thought by Dr. Lindley to be 

 the Q. jorasina, of Bosc; but there is not an absolute certainty of it; and I 

 never crossed any of these districts in the fruit season. Another species, 

 somewhat similar in appearance, if it be not the Q. lusitanica, grows on the 

 flanks of the Sierra de Segura with the Q. Encina^ At a parallel above these, 

 on the Somosierra, at S. Ildefonso, and on the Sierra Nevada, in ascending 

 to the Barranco de San Juan, where it forms the upper zone of forest, above 

 the Q. Encina, is seen the Quercus Toza or Tauzin, or its variety, pubescens. 



" Q. JE^gilops. Li the Sierra de Morena is found the Quercus ^'gilops, 

 but it is rare, owing to a prejudice of the peasantry that it causes abortion in 

 the brood mare, 



" The Qiiercics 'Robur is the most abundant, and almost the only species in 

 the whole of the northern district, or first region ; such parts, at least, as I 

 visited. It extends through Navarre, Guipuscoa, Biscay, maritime Castile, 

 and Asturias ; but I never saw it in the middle region, where it is immediately 

 replaced by the other kinds above iTientioned. The oaks in the park or outer 

 grounds of Aranjuez are of this species, but they have evidently been planted; 

 and, whether from the soil not suiting them, or from over irrigation, are bad 

 specimens of it. By a singular prejudice, which we may well pai'don, the oak 

 for the sculpture of the cathedral of Pamplona was brought from England, as 

 mentioned in the sketch of that place, whilst it is the common species of the 

 neighbourhood. 



Q. Toza and Q. pubescens. The other kinds in the northern region are the 

 Toaa and pubescens, .rarely ; and the variety (I am not acquainted with the 

 name) mentioned in the account of the Pyrenees. I am ignorant of the 

 species of deciduous oaks which grow in Catalonia, where there is a consider- 

 able quantity, having been in that country in a backward spring, before the 

 leaves wejre sufficiently developed. There is also beech, which is exported, 

 but I am not acquainted with the locality. 



