CHAPTER V. 
THE BRITISH OAK. 
Tue British oak, known generally as the common 
oak, is plentiful in the British Isles, and universally 
distributed throughout Europe and Asia, except in the 
extreme northern parts. It is the best known and the 
most enduring of all forest trees. 
Its botanical name is Quercus robur, fromthe Latin and 
Greek respectively. The ancients were fully acquainted 
with its durable and useful qualities, and thus it is not 
surprising that the generic and specific names should 
convey the meaning of hard or strong wood of oak. 
The genus Quercus embraces about three hundred 
species. Whether regarded as a commercial object, or 
on account of a large number of the species being 
useful in so many ways, the oak tree is of great 
importance, and its utility is not surpassed by any 
other genus of forest tree. 
Q. robwr may be regarded as the type of the oaks 
which have sinuated leaves. The tree attains dimensions 
considerably in excess of those of other species of 
Quercus, mainly as regards the size of the trunk and 
the lower limbs. It is not very lofty, but its lower 
limbs spread over a considerable area, Q. cerris fre- 
quently surpassing it in height by forty to fifty feet, 
but does not spread so far. 
In summer and winter alike the British oak commands 
attention: in early summer because of the delicate 
emerald green of the unfolding leaves, which soon 
expand into a wealth of rich green umbrageous verdure. 
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