276 THE OAK. 
acorns are speedily committed to the ground they immediately 
lose their vitality. Their subsequent treatment is similar to 
that of the other oaks; but as they have a tendency to get 
more bare in the roots than most other sorts, which occasions 
a stuntedness in the plants on being transplanted, they should 
be removed early into nursery lines, and planted into their 
ultimate situations before their roots acquire a great strength. 
The leaves of the tree are of a beautiful shining green, oblong, 
and deeply sinuated. They vary exceedingly in size and 
shape on different trees, and on the same tree at different 
stages of its growth. All are remarkably handsome, and are 
produced on long leaf-stalks. A luxuriant tree sometimes 
yields leaves upwards of a foot in length, and six to 
seven inches broad. The leaves are deciduous, and the 
first frost of autumn generally changes them to a beautiful 
yellow and red, which ripens into a crimson or scarlet of the 
brightest intensity. In forest scenery, scarlet oaks, with 
several of the red oaks of America, although of little value as 
timber, will always be esteemed for their richness of effect, 
when planted along the margins of woods, as lawn or park 
trees, and for being grouped in irregular masses throughout 
plantations, occupying declivities, and other conspicuous 
situations. 
Q. Ilex (Linneus).—The Common Evergreen Oak, like every 
other species of the genus, consists of an endless number of 
varieties. It is a native of the south of Europe and north of 
Africa. It is the commonest evergreen in the neighbourhood 
of Rome and Florence; and it has been cultivated in Britain 
from a very remote period. It commonly rises to the height 
of about forty feet; but many trees favourably placed as to 
soil and shelter have attained nearly twice that height. It is 
a tree of slow growth, but of great duration. It is somewhat 
tender when young, but when once established, and advanced 
to the height of a few feet, it grows in common well-drained 
soil, in the climate of the north of Scotland, uninjured by 
the severest winter. 
It is propagated from acorns, which ripen abundantly in 
