THE OAK. 107 



Pedunculate or the Sessilitiora tribe, even when the general differences 

 are tairlv well marked. 



The Oak is of exceedingly slow growth, reaching maturity in 

 the one-hundredth or one-hundred-and-twentieth year of its age, and 

 living tor live-hundred years or more, while specimens about which 

 historical data have been collected, are even known to have lived 

 over one-thousand years. In old trees the size of the bole becomes 

 immense, in some specimens measuring 40 teet in circumference at 

 about a yard from the ground, while the spread of the boughs 

 beyond the trunk will attain to a distance ot 15 yards. The Oak 

 prefers elevated ground free from stagnant water, and a clay soil. 

 On hig;h ijround it is more stunted than when o-rown on low 

 ground. Like most forest trees it bears its barren liowers in catkins, 

 and the pistil and stamen-bearing tiowers upon different branches of 

 the same tree. 



The barking and stackino; of the felled trees is the most interest- 



o o 



ing of the rural scenes connected with the Oak. This is done by 

 the women and children of the woodmen, whilst the ground is 

 svyeet with bluebells and primroses. In the autumn the herdsman still 

 tends his swine amongst the acorns, as in Saxon times. 



RAMIFICATION. 



The ramification of the Oak is well marked and varies but little 

 in different specimens of the common species. The massive spreading 

 boughs usually spring from the stem at a short distance from the 

 ground, almost at a right angle to the trunk. Growing in a horizontal 

 direction, these again give out other boughs, wonderful for their 

 number and the variety of their twists and turns. It is this branch- 

 ing-out of the stem into many boughs, the interweaving of the 



