Robur, Quercus, Aesculus 



best in heavy soils and lower ground. Arcangeli 

 makes a like remark concerning their habits in Italy. 

 Nor in Italy are the two varieties, as with us, geo- 

 graphically interspersed. The durmast is rare in 

 the north and the common oak hardly to be found 

 in the south. 



Just as we use the name of oak indiscriminately 

 of either variety, so Virgil and the Latins generally 

 use the name of 'quercus ' and the Italians the name 

 of ' querce.' When a distinction is made the modern 

 usage differs from Virgil's, the name of ' eschio ' 

 (aesculus) being applied to the common oak, while 

 the durmast is known as ' rovere ' (robur). 



The striking of an oak by lightning was of course 

 accounted an omen (Be. i. 17), and in fact makes 

 a wonderful sight. Some years since a very fine but 

 quite sound oak in Tewkesbury Park was so struck, 

 and only about six feet of the huge trunk left stand- 

 ing. Round the tree a circle with a diameter of a 

 hundred yards was covered with branches great and 

 small, a blow from which might well have killed 

 a man if he had been within the range. The 

 peasantry avowed that timber so struck would not 

 make fuel, but this was easily disproved. 



The bier, feretrum, on which a dead body was 

 laid for burning, was made of cypress and oak 

 {Ae. xi. 65). 



It should be added that Pliny uses robur as the 

 name of a distinct species. This is the Turkey oak, 

 Q, cerris, whose acorn, as he rightly says, is bitter 

 and rough, and bristly like a chestnut. The Romans 



109 



