206 



THE HAWTHORN. 



haps more liable to variation than any other tree. 

 Some exhibit a strong, free, and upright growth, 

 being furnished with large and luxurious foliage, 

 and but few spines ; others, on the contrary, 

 assume the character of stunted, prickly, bushes, 

 with numerous small, and deeply cut leaves. Not 

 unfrequently, from having been cut down to the 

 ground in an early stage of their growth, nume- 

 rous suckers rise from the same root, which, in 

 after years, as they increase in bulk, become par- 

 tially united at their bases, and have the appear- 

 ance of a trunk dividing itself into many branches. 

 Jesse, in his Gleanings of Natural History^ men- 

 tions some trees of this description, each of 

 which he supposes to have consisted originally 

 of one main trunk, which from the eifects of age 

 had separated itself into a number of smaller 

 stems. 



While on the subject of trees," he says, 

 " I will notice the present state of the old 

 Thorns in Bushy Park, from which it probably 

 takes its name. These trees are generally sup- 

 posed to have been in existence at the time of 

 Oliver Cromwell, the park being then used as a 

 hare park. As they increase in age, they have 

 the property of separating themselves into differ- 

 ent stems, some having four or five, or even six, 

 which, as they separate, become regularly barked 

 round, forming, to appearance, so many distinct 

 trees closely planted together, except that they 

 all meet at the butt of the tree. Some of the 

 trees are now undergoing this process of separa- 

 tion, having already thrown out one stem, while 

 in other parts they are deeply indented with 

 seams down the whole stem. These, grjadually 



