THE HORNBEAM. 



129 



the Beech, too, they retain their withered foliage 

 on the young branches all the winter. The Horn- 

 beam when young is also very similar in habit to 

 the Beech, but the latter may immediately be 

 detected, on examination, by its glossy leaves. 

 The flowers appear soon after the leaves, in April, 

 growing in catkins of two kinds, of which 

 the fertile are succeeded by clusters of 

 small angular nuts, each seated at the 

 bottom of a leafy cup. When these are once 

 formed, the tree which bears them cannot be mis- 

 taken, for no other British tree bears fruit of the 

 same kind. The leaf buds are longer and sharper 

 than those of the Elm. 



Owing to its partaking several of the proper- 

 ties of other trees, some of the old writers were 

 puzzled to find its place in the system. Pliny 

 probably saw some resemblance between its clus- 

 ters of nuts and the keys of the Maple, for he 

 places it among the ten kinds of Maple, but adds, 

 that others considered it to belong to a distinct 

 genus. Its second name, Betulus, would seem to 

 imply that it was, by some of the early botanists, 

 considered a kind of Birch, and one of its old 

 English names, ^^Witch-hasell," points to the sup- 

 position that it was a kind of Hazel. Gerard says. 



It growes great and very like unto the elme or 

 wich hasell tree ; having a great body, the wood 

 or timber whereof is better for arrowes and shafts, 

 pulleyes for mils, and such like devices, than elme 

 o¥ wich hasell ; for, in time, it waxeth so hard, 

 t/iat the toughnes and hardnes of it may be 

 rather compared unto horn than unto wood ; and 

 therefore it was called hornebeam or hard-beam. 

 The leaves of it are like the elme, saving that they 



II. K 



