SESSILE-FRUITED OAK. 255 



In Roxburghshire, near Jedburgh, stands the King of the 

 Woods, a beautiful Oak of vigorous growth, with a trunk 

 forty-three feet in height, and a circumference of upwards 

 of sixteen feet, and near to it the Capon tree, figured above, 

 a short- stemmed but very wide-spreading Oak, with a cir- 

 cumference at the base of twenty-four feet, the legend at- 

 tached to which is, that it served as a trysting place for the 

 border clans in bygone times. These two trees are sup- 

 posed to be the remains of the ancient forest of Jed. In 

 Inverness- shire, at the head of Loch G-ary, Sir T. Dick 

 Lauder* found the remains of a prostrate Oak forest 

 upon the surface of the solid ground, among which he 

 measured one tree with a clean stem twenty-three feet 

 in length, sixteen feet in circumference at the butt end, 

 and eleven feet towards the smaller end under the fork ; 

 the wood, with the exception of an inch or two on the 

 external part, appeared perfectly fresh, although it must 



* Lauder's " Gilpin," p. 27'2. 



