572 Further Notices respecting British Oaks. 



" This species has no claim to be considered rare in this, or perhaps in any 

 other, part of the country ; but, except by the eye of a botanist, it is seldom 

 distinguished from the Quercus J?6bur. A writer in the Quarterly Review 

 (No. Ixxvii. p. 22.) states that Quercus sessiliflora " is supposed to have 

 been introduced, some two or three ages ago, from the Continent ; " an 

 opinion which, I cannot help thinking, is ill-founded. That the acorns may 

 have been imported from the Continent, as the reviewer states, and the plants 

 raised from them extensively cultivated, is extremely probable. The species 

 itself, however, I cannot but believe to be an original native of our island, 

 for the following reasons : — In some districts (e. g. in some parts of North 

 Wales, and in the neighbourhood of the lakes in the north of England) it 

 is the most prevailing kind, constituting, as it were, the staple growth of the 

 country, almost to the exclusion of the other species, Q. i26bur. In these 

 situations we should hardly suspect that the trees had been planted by the 

 hand of man, nor have they that appearance ; but, on the contrary, seem to 

 be the spontaneous produce of the soil in which they grow. I have also 

 observed, in various places, trees of the sessile-flowered oak, which, I should 

 conclude, must be of some hundred years' growth. In this county, which 

 formed a part of the woody and extensive district anciently called the 

 Forest of Arden, the oak in question is chiefly to be met with in woods, 

 some of which almost entirely consist of this species, and exhibit evident 

 marks of great antiquity, as well in other respects, as in the large hollow 

 stools of oak which frequently occur in them. It is by no means an im- 

 probable supposition, that our Warwickshire woods may, at least in some 

 instances, be portions of the original unreclaimed land, existing now in 

 nearly the same state as before the country was cleared to its present extent 

 for agricultural purposes. The reviewer above referred to very justly repro- 

 bates the practice of cultivating Quercus sessiliflora as a tree, on account 

 of the comparative worthlessness of its timber. Where woods, however, 

 are periodically cut, and chiefly employed as copse, and the oak poles (with 

 the exception of such samplers as are left for timber) felled at about twenty 

 years' growth for the use of the coal-pits, the sessile-flowered oak, as being 

 of quicker and cleaner growth, answers the purpose well, and is perhaps pre- 

 ferable to the other. So at least our woodmen would argue, who have a 

 common saying among them, that ' a quick ninepence is better than a slow 

 shilling.' I will only add, that this spurious species will attain to a very 

 large size, and is extremely handsome in its foliage. As a timber tree, how- 

 ever, its culture cannot be recommended; and more especially ought the 

 'impostor' to be extirpated from the royal forests and other woods which 

 are to supply our navy." 



The specimens which accompanied Mr. Bree's communication 

 of December 5. are as follows. Our own remarks are in 

 editorial parentheses. 



Quercus sessiliflora, Allesley, September, 1834. Acorns fine, 

 and growing in large clusters. [A magnificent specimen, 

 nearly 18 in. in length ; the leaves from 5 in. to 5| in. in length, 

 with footstalks from | in. to 1 in. in length, and the acorns in 

 clusters of threes, fours, and fives, quite sessile, and ovate in 

 form.] 



Q. sessiliflora, Allesley, September, 1834. Acorns fine. 

 [The leaves not quite so long as in the preceding specimen, but 

 closer together on the branches ; the acorns in ones, twos, and 

 threes, quite sessile.] 



