THE 



FOREST TREES OF BRITAIN. 



THE OAK. 



QuERCUs RoBUR— QuERcus Sessiliflora. 



Natural Order — Amentace^. 

 Class — MoNCEciA. Order — Pol yand ria. 



As long as the Lion holds his place as king 

 of beasts^ and the Eagle as king of birds^ the 

 sovereignty of British Trees must remain to the 

 Oak. Within the tropics, where Nature per- 

 forms all her works on a scale of magnificence 

 unrivalled elsewhere, the stately Palm, uplifting 

 its leafy canopy on a shaft two hundred feet in 

 height ; the Banyan, forming with its countless 

 trunks a forest in itself ; the Baobab, a tree ve- 

 nerable four thousand years ago : each of these 

 may assert its claim to the kingly title. But in 

 England, the country of green fields, in w^hich 

 men labour among their oxen and their sheep ; of 

 lordly parks, with their broad smooth la\vns and 

 clustering trees ; of narrow church-paths winding 

 along by the side of brilliant streamlets, across 

 flowery meadows and through w^oods off'ering a 

 * B 



