1 62 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



any other place in this country except Kew where it is to be seen. 

 I wish I could truthfully say that it was at Aldenham, but though 

 I am taking steps to have it grafted, it is at the moment one of the 

 few oaks which I lack and greatly desiderate. I don't know this 

 species well enough to say much that would be of value, but one 

 marked feature seems to be that the leaves are practically as broad 

 as they are long, they measure from ij to ij in. both ways. The 

 rich orange down which covers their under side gives it its popular 

 name, and is of almost precisely the same shade as that which 

 adorns the foliage of the Himalayan Q. semecarpifolia. I copy 

 from Dr. Henry's botanical account the statement that they are 

 " rounded or acute at the apex ; rounded or broadly cuneate at the 

 base." 



When trees are so inconstant in their leaf production that learned 

 men have to tell you that they are either long or short, either round 

 or square ! the power of the earnest student to visualize the foliage 

 in question is not materially increased. 



Q. ambigua (Michaux). — Some ten or twelve years ago I was staying 

 with my friend Monsieur Maurice de Vilmorin, whose recent death 

 so many have cause to deplore, at his charming country place Les 

 Barres, near Orleans. One day he took me over to see some in- 

 teresting woods which had been planted by his father with exotic 

 trees, and which had at a later date been acquired by the French 

 Government for their School of Forestry. A considerable section 

 had been devoted to this oak, and very fine well-grown trees they 

 were, so far as I can remember, about sixty years old. 



Not feeling that I was robbing our future gallant Allies by my 

 action, I filled one of my pockets with the acorns, and getting home 

 about a fortnight later had them sown ; they had by that time become 

 rather dry and shrivelled, and, as many of my readers will be aware^, 

 the less delay between gathering and planting in the case of acorns 

 the better. However, a fair proportion germinated and have now 

 produced some good strong plants, of which the tallest is 12 ft. high. 

 The parents of this oak are believed to be rubra and coccinea, the 

 former being the mother, and there is nothing in its looks to throw 

 doubt on such a pedigree. Some botanists, however, have held it to 

 be a distinct species, and I am not competent to express an opinion. 

 If I had kept all the young plants which I raised together, and had 

 then got Dr. Henry or some other capable man of science to examine 

 them, he would probably have been able to state decisively whether 

 or not they bore evidence of mixed, and if so of what parentage; 

 but I have only kept two, and the rest have been given away or 

 otherwise disposed of. 



Q. arkansana (Sargent). — I owe the possession of a small specimen 

 of this rare North American deciduous oak to the kindness of the 

 Director of Kew. It is now 1 ft. high, and apparently quite healthy. 

 This species was first received at Kew in 1911, and its first introduction 

 to Europe may be assumed to be little if at all anterior to that date. 

 The only work in which, as far as I know, any account is to be found 



