I 



218 A DISCOURSE 



CHAPTER XVI. 



The QUICK-BEAM^. 



BOOK I. 1. The QUICK-BEAM, ORNUS, or, as the Pinax more peculiarly 

 ^^^^^'^'^ terras it, Fraxinus Bubula, others the Wild Sorb and Witchen, is a species 

 of Wild Ash. The berries which it produces in October may then be 

 sown, or rather the sets planted. I have store of them in a warm grove 

 of mine, and they are of singular beauty. It rises to a reasonable stature, 

 shoots upright and slender, and consists of a fine smooth bark. It delights 

 to be both in mountains and woods, and to fix itself in good light grounds. 

 Virgil affirms it will unite with the Pear, 



»This is the SORBUS (avcvparia) foliis pinnatis, utrinque glabris. Lin. Sp. PI. 683. 

 Service-tree with winged leaves, which are smooth en both sides. Sorbus sylvestris, foliis 

 domesticae similis. C. B. P. 415. Wild Service mlh leaves like the cultivated; commonly 

 called Quicken, quick-beam, mountain ash, and in the north, rowan-tree. 



The Quick-beam grows naturally in many parts of England; but in the southern counties it is 

 seldom seen of any great magnitude, being commonly cut down, and reduced to underwood ; 

 but in the North of England and Wales, where the trees are permitted to grow, they arrive 

 at a considerable size. The stems are covered with a smooth gray bark ; the branches while 

 young have a purplish brown bark, and the leaves are winged ; they are composed of eight 

 or nine pair of long narrow lobes, terminated by an odd one ; the lobes are about two inches 

 long, and half an inch broad toward their base, ending in acute points, and are sharply 

 sawed on their edges ; the leaves on the young trees in the spring, are hoary on their under 

 side, which about Midsummer goes off, but those upon the older branches have very 

 little at any season. The flowers are produced in large bunches, almost in form of umbels, 

 at the end of the branches ; they are composed of five spreading concave petals, shaped like 

 those of the Pear-tree, but smaller ; these are succeeded by roundish berries, growing in large 

 bunches, which have a depressed navel on the top, and turn red in autumn when they 

 ripen. 



The buds of this tree begin to open about the beginning of April. The leaves are out 

 by the middle of the month, and the flowers are in full blow by the sixth of May. There 

 are three styles and twenty stamina inserted into the Calyx, which shows that this tree 

 belongs to the class and order Icosandria Trigynia. 



The Quick-beam is raised from seeds sown as soon as ripe, in beds properly prepared. 

 These frequently remain till the second spring before they make their appearance ; and in 

 the spring following they should be put out into the nursery. It is sometimes raised from 

 layers; but when cultivated in that manner, the trees are neither so handsome nor 



