Further Notices respect mg British Oaks. 



57.5 



My Turkey oaks (Quercus 

 Cerris) grow prodigiously : their 

 bark cracks and turns back al- 

 most like a broiled gizzard. 



Did you ever observe one 

 character in the Turkey oak ? I 

 mean the large swelling, or pro- 

 tuberance, at the base of the arms, 

 where they strike off from the 

 trunk {^fig. 103.). The branches 

 of all trees, of course, have a 

 swelling in this part, more or 

 less; but the Turkey oak in a far 

 greater degree than any other I 

 know. [Mr. Bree adds the fol- 

 lowing remark: — "This figure, 

 having been taken from a very 

 hasty and rude sketch, does not 

 represent the swelling, or pro- 

 tuberance, alluded to by any means so large and prominent as it 

 should have done."] 



What I have called the scarlet oak 

 is the kind so called in the nurseries, 

 and to be had in almost any; whether 

 it is Q. coccinea, I cannot say. I 

 send you a few dead leaves of it. 

 (j%.105.) It comes out in the spring, 

 of a lovely sulphur colour, and turns 

 of a fine deep red in autumn, before 

 the leaves fall. The bark is very 

 smooth, even in large trees. [We 

 think the leaves are those of Quercus 

 rubra; those of Q. coccinea being 

 larger, and not nearly so deeply cut. 

 The latter die off of a scarlet, and 

 the former of a deep red. Fig. 1 04. a 

 is a leaf from a large tree of Q. riibra, in the Fulham Nursery; 

 and i, a leaf from Q. coccinea, at Purser's Cross.] 



December 19. 1835. 



The foregoing observations on British 

 oaks show what a fund of rational entertain- 

 ment may be afforded by a single species of 

 tree. An ordinary observer is apt to think 

 that one oak tree is, in foliage and acorns, 

 just the same as another ; but a careful and 

 minute observer will never find two trees exactly alike in these 



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