52 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 363 



upon consenting and upholding public opinion, and" we 

 can imagine no better means of creating tliis prevailing 

 sentiment than the publication of such a report as is con- 

 templated. It will be a long time before the country will 

 be prepared for any system of forestry which will need the 

 supervision in all its details of persons skilled in the refine- 

 ments of the highest scientific practice. But we must 

 begin right. Mr. Fernow very properly insists that our 

 first need is common-sense treatment of our natural woods. 

 But common-sense treatment is what our woods have 

 never had, and they never will have such treatment until 

 the people are instructed in the elementary principles of 

 sound forestry. The inauguration of a common-sense 

 policy will only come from the teaching and example of 

 those who are masters of the whole subject, and who fore- 

 see that the great advantage of such a policy is that it will 

 be a broad-set foundation for more scientific and rational 

 practice. We need the very best of counsel at the outset, 

 and the more thoroughly the problem is studied now the 

 more certainly shall we avoid fundamental mistakes which 

 it would be the work of years to correct. 



Fructification of the Cork Oak. 



IN Professor Coutinho's valuable paper on the Oaks of 

 Portugal* there are some interesting statements re- 

 garding the fructification of the Cork Oak, Quercus Suber, 

 which has been generally considered as an annual fruiting 

 species, but which in certain localities in Portugal is found 

 to produce both annual and biennial fruit. It would be 

 interesting to learn whether any of the native species on 

 our southern seaboard ever behave in a like manner. The 

 only analogous case, so far as I am aware, is that of Q. 

 myrtifolia, a normally biennial fruiting species, which Dr. 

 Mellichamp finds producing annual fruit plentifully at 

 Bluffton, South Carolina. With the object of drawing the 

 attention of our students of Oaks to this subject I translate 

 the following extracts from Professor Coutinho's paper : 



The flowering of the Cork-tree is with us subcontinuous. It 

 is most abundant from April to July, but occurs in almost all 

 the other months, and appears to be interrupted only by the 

 extreme heat of summer or cold of winter. Maturation takes 

 place from August to February, the fruit ordinarily falling in 

 three more or less distinct crops — the first, whicli our farmers 

 call " bastiio," in September and October ; the second, called 

 " lande," in November, and the third, wliich constitutes the 

 " landisco," or " lande serodia," in December and January. It 

 should be remarked that most of the time these fruits are 

 inserted in shoots bearing leaves of the year, and are evidently 

 produced and developed in a single season, but in some cases 

 the fruits produced from the last flowers of autumn or winter, 

 not meeting then the warmth necessary for maturing, pass the 

 winter in an undeveloped condition, and only ripen in the fol- 

 lowing spring or summer after the growth of new shoots, 

 appearing then mature on the woody branchlet of tiie previous 

 year, which may be at that time furnished with or bare of 

 leaves. This fact appears due more to particular weatlier 

 conditions than to an especial organization of the trees in 

 which it occurs ; in short, it is not constant with a given indi- 

 vidual, nor is it exclusive, the same individual being able to 

 produce fruits plainly annual. 



■Jt -K ■>:- -^ * 



Many botanists consider the Cojk Oaks of Europe as belong- 

 ing to two species, one chiefly characterized by annual fructi- 

 fication and the persistence of the leaves for two or three years 

 (Quercus Suber, L.), the other by biennial fructification and 

 annual persistence of the leaves (O. occidentalis, Gay). 



Recent botanists and silviculturists have frequently dis- 

 cussed the existence of Quercus occidentalis in the Peninsula, 

 and some have even doubted its being a good species. Bro- 

 tero, in the Flora Lusitanica, includes all the Portuguese Corlv 

 Oaks in the Linnsean species, Q. Suber, and maizes no remark 

 about the maturation of the fruit and persistence of tlie leaves 

 of these trees. Later, Dr. Welvvitsch considered the Cork-trees 

 ot Cintra as belonging to Q. occidentalis, and the specimens 

 sent to France, and studied by Gay himself, were determined 

 by him as belonging to his new species, and as such cited in 

 De CandoUe's Prodroiiuis. Lastly, Sr. Barros-Gonies dis- 



•■ Os Quercus de Portugal. Bohtim lia Sociedadc Bn^teyeana, vol. vi. Coimbra, iS8S. 



puted this assertion, affirming that the Cork Oaks of Cintra 

 belong to the Linnasan species, and denying that Q. occiden- 

 talis should be considered a good species. We transcribe the 

 principal reasons he adduced : 



"The Cork-tree of Cintra collected by Welwitsch, and deter- 

 mined as Quercus occidentalis by the followers of the new 

 classification, does not have fruit more biennial in appearance 

 than many others, in which there is no doulit ot its being in 

 fact annual, and only apparently biennial. It is very common 

 in Portugal to find an apparent Ijiennial maturation of fruit 

 that is really annual, because the growth ot the Cork-tree with 

 us often admits the formation of one, two, or even three 

 new growtlis in a single year, exactly as occurs in the common 

 Oak, 0. pedunculata. 



" The prolonged flowering of the Cork-tree, commencing in 

 April, hardly ceases during the dry season, and is renewed 

 with tlie first rains of autumn, giving rise to two or three suc- 

 cessive crops of acorns, the last of whicli matures in January. 

 It is often accompanied witli successive new growths and par- 

 tial falling of the leaves of the year, so that the lower branches, 

 only a few months old, become bare, and have the biennial 

 appearance to wliich we refer. In the common Oak, whose 

 foliage is wholly annual, fruit is found apparently biennial by 

 insertion, and, nevertlieless, plainly annual by the coexistence 

 of leaves with the same insertion. 



"Tlie foliage of the Portuguese Cork-tree, with annual fruit, 

 is not persistent, as a rule, during two or three years, as Mathieu 

 affirms of the species he describes as Quercus Suber, nor by 

 any means is it always annual as in the one he calls O. occi- 

 dentalis, but it varies with the meteorological behavior of 

 each year or with local conditions, in some years wholly fall- 

 ing, in others persisting more than one and sometimes two 

 years. 



" It does not appear that our Cork-trees, even those of Cintra, 

 have from January to April acorns in immature condition." 

 {Condic. Flores. de Port., pp. 56, 57.) 



Contrary to the last statement ot Sr. Barros-Gomes, we found 

 in 1886, toward the end of February, living fruit but little de- 

 veloped on specimens gathered near S. Tliiago de Cacem, 

 fruit evidently produced the previous season, and which could 

 only mature in the season to come. With this fact was corre- 

 lated a very peculiar form of the scales of the cup exactly 

 agreeing with the Cork-trees of Cintra, identified as Quercus 

 occidentalis by Welwitscli and by Gay himself. Furthermore, 

 the existence of some bundles in the central parenchyma 

 bounded by the arc of the fibro-vascular bundles of the petiole, 

 was observed, like those which occur in the trees of Cintra, and 

 which, according to De Candolle, is peculiar to Q. occidentalis, 

 not being found in Q. Suber. These reasons led us to affirm 

 the existence of Q. occidentalis in Portugal in our Esbofo de 

 iiina Flora Letihosa, lately published. 



To-day, however, after a careful study of very numerous 

 specimens, living and dried, from many parts of the country, 

 we are obliged to greatly modify our former opinion and have 

 arrived at the following conclusions : 



1. The Cork Oak in our climate has an almost continuous 

 flowering, as Sr. Barros-Gonies well says. We have seen 

 specimens in flower (living or dried) in the months of January, 

 February, April, May, June, July, September, October, No- 

 vember and December. 



2. With this almost uninterrupted flowering there is a cor- 

 responding fructification similarly uninterrupted from the end 

 of August till February. It is to be noted — a fact not found in 

 our other Portuguese Oaks — that it is common to find on the 

 same branch fruit in very different degrees of development ; 

 for example, a mature fruit in the axil of one leaf, and very 

 small fruit, hardly formed, in the axil of a higher leaf. 



3. The last fruits formed before the cold weather may per- 

 sist through the winter and develop the following spring or 

 summer. We have seen specimens in this state (with very 

 small living fruit, from December to March) from S. Thiago 

 de Cacem (above referred to), from Cintra, from Coimbra, 

 from Portello and from Alemtejo. These fruits are produced 

 in one season and grow and ripen during the following one, 

 contrary to the statement of Sr. Barros-Gomes. 



4. It is certain that the Cork-tree frequently makes two 

 growths in one year, but we consider it quite easy in this case 

 to distinguish the false biennial insertion of the fruit. When 

 the tree makes two growths in a single year, the second or 

 summer shoot is more pubescent, less woody, with narrower 

 leaves, and has thus a characteristic appearance. 



5. These biennial fruits are not constant in certain trees, but 

 appear or not according to localities or seasons, and on the 

 same trees annual fruits may be developed also. In proof of 

 this assertion we will say that in the end of last February, 



