OAKS AT ALDENHAM. 



acorns of this plant are quite normal, and leave no doubt that the 

 specific name is correct, but the leaves are very long, in some cases 

 reaching 8 in., and are very shallowly lobed, so that the general effect 

 is quite unlike that of a Turkey Oak ; it is making a very handsome 

 tree. 



Q. C err is laciniata is an extremely deeply-lobed form, the leaves 

 being cut away right down to the midrib. We have two plants, of which 

 the best is well grown, and stands 17 ft. 6 in. high. 



In addition to these named varieties I have another good-looking 

 young tree about 6 ft. high, with particularly attractive foliage, which 

 is either a variety of Cerris or possibly a hybrid between Cerris and 

 some other oak. It came to Aldenham as Querctis castaneaejolia, 

 a name to which it has obviously not the slightest pretension. 



Q. chrysolepis (Liebmann), Maul Oak. — This is one of the live 

 oaks, as Americans are in the habit of calling the evergreen members 

 of that family, and has besides the popular local name of " Gold Cup 

 Oak " ; it belongs to California. It is a curious and interesting fact 

 that there should be about the same number of different species of 

 oaks in the Atlantic and Pacific States of North America, and that in 

 no case is the same oak to be found growing wild on both sides of the 

 Rocky Mountains. In fact, the Western oaks seem to have more 

 affinity with the European than they have with their Eastern congeners. 



The Maul oak has an ashy-grey bark ; the foliage is sometimes 

 pale and glaucous, and sometimes bright shiny green, with yellowish 

 pubescence underneath ; the oblong entire leathery leaves have very 

 short petioles ; the large ovoid solitary sessile acorns take two years 

 to mature ; the wood is heavy and strong, but difficult to work. 

 Though stately and majestic when it reaches such proportions, 

 and carries, as it sometimes does, a great head of branches, 50 

 yards across, it is not commonly to be found as a large timber 

 tree, even in its own habitat, whilst in the British Isles, to which it 

 was first introduced in 1877, there is at present no evidence that it 

 will ever become more than a shrub, and none is known to me to be 

 alive now which exceeds twenty years of age. In fact, it varies greatly 

 in size and character according to the altitude at which it is found. 

 Mr. F. R. S. Balfour, who knows it well in its natural state, 

 writes : "In the southern Sierra Nevada I have seen it covering 

 immense areas with impenetrable thicket only four or five feet high, 

 and in that region it ascends to 8,000 feet, becoming at last a small 

 prostrate shrub with tiny leaves. Lower in the valleys it is a highly 

 picturesque tree." 



Besides the two small plants at Kew there are some growing on 

 the hillside at Rostrevor, in the Mourne Mountains, and it is to their 

 owner, Sir John Ross of Bladensburg, that I ov/e the presence of a 

 small rather stunted plant at Aldenham, about 2 ft. high. He was 

 inclined to attribute my plant to the sub-alpine form vaccinifolia, 

 which is found at a higher altitude in the same districts as chrysolepis, 

 but as it seems very doubtful whether vaccinifolia be truly a variety 



