1722 ARBORETUM AND FRUT1CETUM. PART III. 



Plantarum, 89 ; and about the same number are described in the Nouveau 

 l)u Ha nic/, ami by Smith in the article Quercus in Rees's Cj/clopcedia. Ac- 

 cording to the Dictionnairc Classique <f 'Hist aire Natitrclle, the total number of 

 species described by botanists up to 1823 was 130 ; of which one half belonged 

 to America, and of these upwards of 40 to the United States. Humboldt 

 and Bonpland collected 24 species in Mexico ; Dr. Wallich and Dr. Royle 

 have found nearly half that number in the temperate regions of India; and 

 Blume found 1(> species in Java. If, therefore, we take the number of oaks 

 which have been described by botanists at 150, we shall probably not be far 

 from the truth. Of these, the number indigenous to, or introduced into, 

 Britain is, according to our Hortus Britannicus, 62 ; so that there remain 

 to be introduced nearly 100 sorts. When it is considered that all the oak 

 family are decidedly trees of temperate regions, and would probably all live 

 in the open air in the climate of London, their introduction seems one of 

 the most desirable objects of arboricultural exertion. 



The economical History of the European oaks may date from the days of 

 Theophrastus and Pliny ; the importance of the genus, and the various uses to 

 which the different species are applied, having been treated of in every work on 

 planting or forest culture since the time of the Greek naturalist. Secondat, 

 in his Mem. sur FHist. Nat. dn Chene, published in 1785, was the first writer 

 w ho showed the different qualities of the wood of Q. pedunculata, Q. sessili- 

 fldra, and Q. Tauzin ; he also made various experiments to ascertain the 

 strength of the different kinds of oak wood ; and endeavoured to prove that 

 Q. sessilifldra was the Q. 7?6bur of the ancients. Fougeroux and Daubenton, 

 both professors, and members of the Academie Royale des Sciences, first 

 pointed out the common error in considering the wood of Q. sessilifldra, which 

 is common in the old ecclesiastical buildings in France, as the chestnut. (See 

 Mem. de VAcad. des Scien. for 1781, p. 49. and p. 295. The first work on 

 the American oaks which treated of the uses of the timber was that of the 

 elder Michaux, entitled Histoirc des Chenes de VAmerique, published in 1801 ; 

 and the best modern account of them is in the North American Sylva of his 

 son, in 3 volumes, 8vo, the English edition of which was published in 1819. 

 Bosc has also published what may be called the popular and economical history 

 of the oak, which is entitled, Memoires sur les diffcrentes Especes de Chine 

 f/iti croisscnt en France, et sur ces E'trangers a V Empire qui se cullivent dans 

 les Jardins et Pepinieres des Environs des Paris, &c., in the Mem. de VInstit. 

 National de France, l er Semestre, for 1807, p. 307. In this work 50 species 

 are described, of which 14 are considered natives of France. The Recherches 

 Hutoriques sur les Chenes, and the Essai sur les Harmonies Vegctales et 

 Animates du Chene, both by Marquis, contain some curious information on 

 the subject. The elder Michaux's work has been translated, and some 

 additions made to it, by Dr. Wade, in his Quercus, published in 1809. It is 

 remarkable, that, in Martyn's edition of Miller's Dictionary, the part of which 

 treating of Quercus was published in 1807, no notice whatever is taken of 

 the o;tk> of America, except those which had been described in the Hortus 

 Ki Uh nm f though Michaux'fl Histoirc des Chenes, &c, was published six years 

 before. The Amcenitatei QuercinecE, by the late Professor Burnet, published 

 in No-. :>. mid <>. of Jiurgcss's Eidodendron, 1833, and which occupies 25 folios 

 of tint immense pages of that work, is one of the latest essays on the subject, 

 and, like all works that have been written by that learned author, is a very curi- 

 ous and elaborate production, though not so well known as it deserves to be. 



Poetical and mythological Allusions. The oak was dedicated by the ancients 

 to Jupiter, because it was said that an oak tree sheltered that god at his birth, 

 on Mount. Lycseus, iii Arcadia; and there is scarcely a Greek or Latin poet, 

 or prose author, who does not make some allusion to this tree. Herodotus 

 fir-t mentions the sacred forest of Dodona ( ii. c. 57.), and relates the traditions 

 he heard respecting it from the priests of Egypt. Two black doves, he says, 

 took their flight from the city of Thebes, oik- of which flew to the temple of 

 Jupitef Amnion, and the other to Dodona; where, with a human voice, it 



