OAKS AT ALDENHAM. 



177 



trees of the same appearance and similar parentage have been found 

 in various parts of the United States, but according to Dr. Henry, 

 though in all these cases Phellos is one of the parents, the other is 

 sometimes more likely to have been coccinea or velutina than rubra. 



Kew has a specimen of this fine hybrid over 30 ft. high, which 

 was sent there from the Arnold Arboretum in 1877. The Director 

 has kindly undertaken to supply me with wood from it, which I hope 

 to get successfully grafted on a rubra stock next March. The leaves, 

 about 4 in. long by i| in. wide, are deciduous, lanceolate, with a sharp 

 apex and wedge-shaped base. Sometimes they are enitre, and some- 

 times they have " triangular bristle-pointed lobes, separated by wide 

 sinuate sinuses." 



Hybrids. — It may be well that I should devote a small portion of 

 this paper to this subject, for the genus is certainly prone to hybridiza- 

 tion, a habit of which I cannot altogether approve, either in my 

 capacity of moralist or arboriculturist. Mr. Elwes, with whom I was 

 in correspondence on some difficulties with which I had to contend 

 in identifying some of my specimens, where the labels — as labels, alas, 

 so often do — had disappeared, writes: " I am convinced that there are 

 many hybrids both wild and cultivated in this genus." As an illustra- 

 tion of the truth of this statement, the famous Lucombe oak (Cerris X 

 Suber) at once occurs to the mind. Seedlings of this hybrid display 

 the most diverse forms, and it has also given birth to such striking 

 varieties as Q. X Lucombeana diversijolia and Q. X Lucombeana 

 fulhamensis. 



Besides the Lucombe there is also Q. X Leana (imbricaria X velutina, 

 or coccinea) , Q. X heterophylla {Phellos X rubra) , Q. X ambigua (rubra 

 X coccinea), Q. X Turneri (pedunculata X Ilex), Q. X audleyensis (Ilex 

 X sessili 'flora?), and Q. X Bebbiana (= alba x macrocarpa) (see 

 p. 161), Q. X Sargentii (pedunculata X Prinus). Besides these named 

 and recognized hybrids there are growing at Aldenham — bicolor X 

 alba, Prinus X alba, Toza X lanuginosa, Toza X macrocarpa, Toza X 

 pedunculata, rubra X (?). Further, though they are now not to be found, 

 our catalogue shows that we have had in the past Q. X exacla (palustris 

 X imbricaria) and Q. velutina X missouriensis , whatever oak that 

 last name may represent, of which I must confess my ignorance. 

 Again, though I have no such specimen myself, crosses are known 

 to exist between our two indigenous oaks, the sessile and pedun- 

 culate. Moreover, there is the well-established case of an oak at 

 Tortworth, which is the result of the pollination of its Toza parent 

 by a neighbouring pedunculate, and of which, as mentioned above, 

 I have specimens. The well-known French botanist, L. Trabut, 

 in his book " Flore de l'Alg^rie," describes a natural hybrid, Q. 

 Mirbeckii X Ilex, which he had seen in that country. The leaves 

 resembled the former rather than the latter parent, as can be seen 

 from fig. 14 on Plate 3 in the Revue generate de Botanique, vol. 

 iv. (1892). This tree has, or had, the peculiarity that some of the 

 acorn cups were sessile, and others pedunculate. In L America 



