THE HORNBEAM. 



Carpinus Betulus. 



Natural Order — Amentace^. 

 Class — MoNCECiA. Order — Polyandria. 



Of all our indigenous forest-trees perhaps no 

 one is so little known as the Hornbeam ; nor is 

 this surprising, for, although it frequently reaches 

 a height of fifty or sixty feet, it has no strongly- 

 marked distinctive character, and is often mis- 

 taken for some kind of Elm, to which its foliage 

 bears a great resemblance. It is found in most 

 of the temperate countries of Europe and Asia, 

 and is far from uncommon in several of the coun- 

 ties of England ; in some it is so abundant that 

 it forms (as Sir J. Smith observes) a principal 

 part of the ancient forests on the north and east 

 sides of London : such as Epping, Finchley, &c. 

 By the Greeks it was called Zugia, or yoke- 

 tree," from the use to which its timber was applied ; 

 the Latins called it Carpinus, the name by which 

 it is still known to botanists. 



It has a straight and tolerably smooth trunk, 

 which is slender and very frequently flattened, 

 twisted, or otherwise irregular in shape, and is 

 subdivided into a large number of long tapering 

 branches, which diverge in such a way that the 

 main stem is generally lost in the confused mass 

 at some distance below the summit. The branches 

 are remarkably liable to unite when they touch in 



