1278 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



it extends on the high western plateaux as far south as Mengtze in Yunnan, 

 nowhere, so far as I have observed, attaining considerable dimensions. 



This tree was probably introduced into Europe by Siebold, who sent acorns of 

 several Japanese oaks to Leyden in 1830. According to Loudon,^ young plants 

 were growing in 1842 in the Tooting and Epsom Nurseries. It has never thriven 

 in this country, usually forming a low bushy tree, liable to injury by both spring and 

 late frosts, and seldom displaying its fine foliage to advantage. At Syon, where a 

 specimen is said to be over thirty years old, it has made but little growth. It 

 appears to thrive better in the United States, where it is hardy as far north as 

 eastern Massachusetts.^ (A. H.) 



QUERCUS ALNIFOLIA 



Quercus alnifolia, Poech, Enum. PI. Cypri, 12 (1842); Boissier, Fl. Orient, iv. 1168 (1879); 



Schneider, Laubhohkunde, i. 183 (1904). 

 Quercus cypria, Jaubert at Spach, Illust. PL Orient, i. t. 56 (1843). 



A shrub or small tree. Young branchlets densely covered with greyish stellate 

 pubescence, retained in the second year. Leaves (Plate 338, Fig. 60) coriaceous, 

 persistent two years, i^ to 2 in. long and broad, orbicular or obovate ; rounded or 

 acute at the apex ; rounded or broadly cuneate at the base ; with five to eight pairs 

 of prominent lateral nerves, all but the lower one or two pairs, ending in a minute 

 mucronate tooth ; upper surface dark green with deciduous stellate hairs ; lower 

 surface covered with a dense orange or yellowish grey tomentum ; ' petiole \ in. 

 long, tomentose. 



Fruit ripening in the second year, solitary or two to three on a short tomentose 

 stalk; acorn \ to \\ in. long, surrounded at the base by a hemispherical cupule, 

 covered with tomentose scales, the basal ranks ovate and appressed, the median 

 scales lanceolate, and the upper linear scales long and recurved. 



This species grows as underwood in the pine forests of the mountains of Cyprus 

 at 1600 to 5000 ft. altitude. It is very rare in cultivation,* the only specimens which 

 we have seen being two small trees, about 7 ft. high, at Kew, which were raised from 

 acorns sent by Sir Robert Biddulph in 1885. One of these is in the temperate house 

 and the other is in the oak collection. (A. H.) 



' In Gard. Mag. xviii. 17, 41 (1842). Bretschneider, in Hist. Europ. Disc. China, 1061 (1898), states that he sent 

 acorns from Peking to the Arnold Arboretum, Mass., from which plants were raised. 

 2 Sargent, Silva N. Amer. viii. 10, note 41 (1895). 



" In native specimens the tomentum is orange in colour ; but in the shrubs at Kew it is only slightly tinged with yellow. 

 * Cf. Gard. Chron. xiv. 533 (i88o), and xvii. 227 (1882) ; and The Garden, xviii. 486 (1880). 



