340 CARPINUS. 



common in parts of Wales, in Lancaster, and the north 

 midland counties; it does not, however, extend to the 

 northernmost counties, nor do we think it is truly indige- 

 nous to Scotland, although Sir J. W. Hooker includes it 

 in the " Flora Scotica," as we have never met with or 

 seen it in natural woods, or in situations where it appeared 

 to grow native, but always where it seemed to have been 

 artificially introduced. It is also a native of Ireland; 

 Its range upon Continental Europe is very extensive, 

 and reaches northward as high as 55° and 56° N. L. In 

 Asia it is found in the Caucasus, Western Asia, and Asia 

 Minor, but is not met with upon the African Continent. 



By the Greeks it was considered a kind of maple, 

 and like it went under the name of Zeugia, the wood 

 of both trees, from the tenacity of their fibre, being em- 

 ployed for making the yokes for oxen. By the Romans 

 it does not appear to have been held in much repute, as no 

 mention is made of it by Virgil or other poetical authors. 

 Pliny describes it under the name of carpinus, by which 

 title it is also alluded to by Vitruvius. Amongst our 

 early writers it is described by Gerard as " very like unto 

 the elm or wich-hasell, having a great body, the wood 

 or timber whereof is better for arrows and shafts, pulleys 

 for mills, and such like devices than elm or wich-hasell, 

 for in time it waxeth so hard, that the toughness and 

 hardness of it may be rather compared to horn than unto 

 wood, and therefore it was called Hornbeam, or Hard- 

 beam." By the author of "An Old Thrift Newly-revived," 

 it is classed among the British timber trees, and he says 

 " it doth much resemble the beech tree in quality." Park- 

 inson, in his " Theatre of Plants," considers it to be the 

 Ostrya of Theophrastus, and he so names it. Evelyn, 

 after enumerating several of the uses to which its timber 



