OAKS AT ALDENHAM. 



161 



record of this species, that now eight years later they should be in 

 robust health. It can be seen from the photograph taken early in 

 December, with the dying foliage still adhering to the branches, that 

 this tree, which though the taller is by no means the better of the 

 two, is neither ill-grown nor in bad case (fig. 15). 



This species holds its leaf very late, at any rate so long as the trees 

 are young. I noticed mine in the last week of last January and hardly 

 a leaf had fallen, though all the other deciduous oaks were bare, except 

 Q. ellipsoidalis and Q. rubra, which still retained some of their foliage. 

 Neither in Mr. Elwes' nor Mr. Bean's books are any varieties of 

 the white oak recorded. It is true that I have an oak bought from 

 a German nursery which purports to be a variety of alba, 

 " Schonbusch," but, as far as I and better-qualified friends can judge, 

 it bears no relation to that species, the leaves are much smaller, of 

 a greyish colour, and have much more sharply toothed edges. It is 

 in excellent health, 13 ft. high, and the only respect in which it re- 

 sembles Q. alba is that the foliage was still clinging to the branches 

 at the end of last January. Besides this variety I have also a hybrid, 

 alba X macrocarpa (Q. X Bebbiana)— in fact, several — all of which 

 have been given me by Professor Sargent. The two tallest are 

 10 and 9 ft. high respectively. This hybrid is mentioned in " Trees 

 of Great Britain " in the article on Q. macrocarpa, and it is there 

 stated, in note 1, on p. 1305, to grow faster than either parent, a 

 fact borne out by our experience at Aldenham. The parent of my 

 plants is, 1 imagine, a natural hybrid oak growing at Charleville, 

 Vermont, which is referred to in the above-mentioned note. 



Q. aliena (Bliime).- — My best specimen of this deciduous Chinese 

 oak is only 4 ft, 6 in. in height, but I am the fortunate possessor of a 

 good healthy plant of the variety Q. aliena acutiserrata, which reaches 

 7 ft. 6 in. and gives every promise of making a fine forest tree. I 

 also had at one time another variety, Q. aliena acutiserrata calvescens, 

 but this has unkindly " died on me," as the Irish say. 



Both type and varieties are practically unknown in European cul- 

 tivation, and are consequently passed over in silence both by Elwes 

 and Henry, and by Bean. For an account of them I must refer 

 my readers to " Plantae Wilsonianae," vol. iii. pp. 214-6, where, 

 however, the descriptions, though doubtless very learned, do not 

 enable the ordinary unscientific man to form much idea of the appear- 

 ance or characteristics of the trees, e.g., happening to possess some of 

 this species, I am able to say that the foliage is not persistent, but 

 I can find no mention of this not unimportant feature in the three 

 pages above referred to. I suppose that the author assumes a far 

 greater knowledge in his readers than I at any rate am fortunate 

 enough to possess. 



Q. alnifolia (Poech), Golden Oak of Cyprus. — This small ever- 

 green tree, or rather shrub, is found as undergrowth in the pine woods 

 in the mountainous parts of Cyprus. It was first brought to England 

 in 1885, and neither Mr. Elwes' nor Mr. Bean's accounts disclose 



