VARIOUS PAETS OF NATURE 349 



ASH TREES. 



Many ash trees bear loads of keys every year, others never 

 seem to bear any at all. The prolific ones are naked of leaves 

 and unsightly ; those that are steril abound in foliage, and carry 

 their verdure a long while, and are pleasing objects.' 



BEECH.2 



Beeches love to grow in crowded situations, and will insinuate 

 themselves through the tliickest covert, so as to surmount it all : 

 are therefore proper to mend thin places in tall hedges. 



SYCAMORE. 



May 12. The sycamore or great maple is in bloom, and at 

 this season makes a beautiful appearance, and affords much 

 pabulum for bees, smelling strongly like honey. The foliage of 

 this tree is very fine, and very ornamental to outlets. All the 

 maples have saccharine juices. 



GALLS OF LOMBARDY POPLAR. 



The stalks and ribs of the leaves of the Lombardy poplar are 

 embossed with large tumours of an oblong shape, which by in- 

 curious observers have been taken for the fruit of the tree. 

 These galls are full of small insects, some of which are winged, 

 and some not. The parent insect is of the genus of cynips. 

 Some poplars in the garden are quite loaded with these excres- 

 cences. 



CHESTNUT TIMBER. 



John Carpenter brings home some old chestnut trees which 

 are very long ; in several places the wood-peckers had begun 



1 [There are three kinds of ash-trees, such as bear staminate flowers only, such 

 as bear pistillate flowers only, and such as bear both staminate and pistillate 

 flowers,] 



*[This extract is not found in the ed. of 1795.] 



