I76 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



I have noticed that many of these exotic oaks are very slow starters 

 in our heavy soil. They will sometimes remain for several years 

 almost dormant, making perhaps an inch of growth or even die 

 back to near the ground level, and then suddenly make a start and 

 quickly develop into vigorous young trees. In cases such as this of 

 little oak seedlings with thin wiry stems, poorly developed foliage, 

 and insufficient root, I am quite sure that the right course to adopt is 

 the one advocated long ago by that sage counsellor Loudon, namely, 

 to cut them down level with the ground and make them begin over 

 again; then, when in consequence they send up several new shoots, 

 naturally all but the strongest and straightest one would be removed. 

 By following this plan I am satisfied that a good specimen will be 

 more rapidly obtained, and where the original stem is cankered or 

 badly deformed, it is indeed the only way of getting a good plant at 

 all. In case of commoner oaks I have frequently acted in this way 

 with conspicuous success, but, where almost irreplaceable species are 

 concerned, I admit that such drastic methods need both faith and 

 courage, and it is easier to preach than to practise. Q. grosseserrata 

 does not appear to have been in cultivation in Europe before 1903 

 when Professor Sargent sent several plants to Kew. 



In " Plantae Wilsonianae," vol. hi. pp. 231-2, there are notes about 

 this tree, which was collected and observed by Wilson, who states 

 that he is unable to distinguish it from Q. crispula. In that work 

 it is treated as a variety of Q. mongolica, but in " Trees of 

 Great Britain " Mr. Elwes deals with it, pp. 1327-8, as being a true 

 species, and only mentions Q. mongolica incidentally in a note. 



The three oaks are so close together that it is to my mind most 

 unlikely that they will all continue to be regarded as separate species, 

 but as is the case with the confusion surrounding the identity of, 

 or difference between, Q. Gambelii, Q. stellata, and Q. utahensis, so 

 with these three very little is yet known about them in this country. 

 So keen an observer as Professor Sargent admits that he cannot 

 tell Q. crispula from Q. grosseserrata by the foliage, and as, even if 

 they do bear acorns in this country, it may be fifty years before they 

 are produced, most people will readily content themselves with one 

 or the other. Besides my plants of Q. grosseserrata I have one of 

 Q. mongolica but none of Q. crispula, though that is probably the least 

 rare in Europe of the three. To my own knowledge it is to be seen 

 at Kew, Edinburgh, and at Rostrevor, and doubtless in several other 

 collections. 



Q. x heterophylla (Michaux), Bartram's Oak. — This tree has been 

 variously supposed to be a variety of Q. Phellos or Q. nigra, or a 

 true and separate species, but has been conclusively proved to be a 

 hybrid, of which one of the parents is certainly Phellos and the other 

 generally rubra. The first tree of this kind to be found and described 

 grew on the land of a man named John Bartram, near Philadelphia, 

 in the first half of the eighteenth century. He was a famous man in 

 his time, and a botanical garden in that city now bears his name. Other 



