THE OAK 5 
the leaves of which remain downy, and stay longer 
on the tree, hanging in melancholy russet late into 
the spring. Its timber is of inferior quality, and 
resembles Chestnut wood in appearance and, it is 
said, in being distasteful to spiders. Parts of the 
roof of Westminster Abbey are said to be of this 
cobweb-proof material. 
In a growing Oak notice will be taken of the 
outward spreading of the stem at its base; of the 
rugged bark; of the curiously tortuous branchlets, 
twisting in zigzag fashion almost rectangularly 
towards every point of the compass, owing to the 
central shoots becoming abortive; and of the 
uniquely waving outline of the yellowish-green 
leaves. The leaves generally make their first 
appearance in the south of England towards the 
end of April, when the young shoots blush with 
a ruddiness almost autumnal; and, if at all 
sheltered from the glare of July and August, a 
constant succession of the pink and ‘bronze-tinted 
glories of the young leafage is kept up in our 
moist summers till late in autumn, when the first 
formed leaves are beginning to change. Then the 
green loses its olive-yellow tints for clear gold, 
mottled with clear grass green, fading to the sober 
pallid russet which lasts through the winter. This 
indescribable hue has none of the coppery rich- 
ness of the dead leaves of Beech, nor the warm 
umber of the Horse-chestnut: it is the grey ghost 
of a brown that has been. 
The catkins appear shortly after the leaves: the 
male ones pendulous, the female erect. The 
