EVERGREEN OAK. 



97 



difficulty is obviated by sowing the acorns either 

 in the spot Vfhere the trees are destined to stand, 

 or by confining their roots in pots until they are 

 required for planting. During their early stage 

 they grow with considerable rapidity, but after- 

 wards increase much more slowly. The bark is 

 even, and of a light colour ; the leaves of a dark 

 bluish-green above, and more or less do^ray be- 

 neath, the younger shoots being as remarkable for 

 their light hue as the full-grown tree is for the 

 characteristic sombreness of its foliage. The shape 

 of the leaf varies greatly in different individuals, 

 and even not unfrequently on the same tree, being 

 sometimes scarcely notched at all, at other times 

 deeply serrated, and at others quite prickly. It 

 is this last variety which has procured for it the 

 name of Holm Oak." It also resembles the 

 Hohn or Holly-tree, in having its most prickly 

 leaves on the lowest branches. The acorn, which 

 does not arrive at perfection until the second year, 

 resembles that of the Oak, but is somewhat more 

 slender, and the cup is scaly. Some trees bear 

 sweet and edible acorns ; those produced by others 

 are bitter, and both kinds are sometimies to be 

 found on the same tree. An allied species, Quer- 

 cus gramuntia, which is so like the Ilex as to have 

 been thought formerly merely a variety of the 

 same tree, bears acorns, which when in perfection 

 are as good as a chestnut, or even superior to it. 

 These, according to Capt. S. C. Cook, are ^^the 

 edible acorns of the ancients, which they believed 

 fattened the tunny fish on their passage from the 

 ocean to the Mediterranean : a fable, only prov- 

 ing that the acorns grew on the delicious shores 

 and rocks of Andalusia, which, unhappily, is no 



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