COMMON HORNBEAM. 



339 



doubly serrated, with numerous parallel, transverse, hairy 

 ribs, and when expanding- are beautifully crimped or 

 plaited. The barren, 

 or male catkins, are 

 two or three inches 

 long, loose and scaly, 

 of a yellow colour ; and 

 the female catkins, 

 which when young are 

 covered with close 

 brownish scales, be- 

 come gradually enlarg- 

 ed, " and," as Sir J. 

 E. Smith describes 

 them, " form unequally 

 three-lobed, sharply- 

 serrated, veiny, dry, 

 pale green bracteas, 

 each enveloping an 

 angular nut, scarcely 

 bigger than a grain of barley." 



The trunk of the Hornbeam is rarely, in trees of above 

 twenty-five or thirty years 1 growth, found of a round or 

 regular form, but appears twisted, and as it were corn- 

 loosed of several stems, grown or united together ; this 

 peculiar growth, it would seem, arises from the irregular 

 deposition of the annual layers which, instead of being 

 deposited in regular circular lines, as in most other 

 trees, are undulated or zigzag, at the same time that 

 the medullary or transverse rays are stronger and wider 

 apart. 



The Hornbeam is indigenous to a great part of England, 

 and abounds in Essex, Kent, Norfolk, &c. ; it is also 



