l8o JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Of course it seems very stupid to have blundered in this fashion, 

 but the root of the evil is reckless nomenclature by the nurserymen. 

 To begin with, it is a fatal error to send a plant out under a varietal 

 name, suppressing altogether the specific one; next, it should never 

 have been given a varietal name which had already been allotted as 

 a specific one to a totally distinct oak. In this case Q. Ilex lancijolia, 

 or lanceolata, would have been a suitable name and free from any 

 objection. 



It would mark a great step in advance if nurserymen could be 

 persuaded before giving varietal names to plants which they have 

 raised and which appear to differ from the type, to submit the proposed 

 epithet to Kew, and learn if there is anything to be said against it. 

 Only the other day, in response to an inquiry of mine as to what oaks 

 they had in stock, one leading member of the English trade informed 

 me that he had among others Q. magnified, and another that he 

 had Q. longijolia — " fool names," as Mr. Elwes would call them, 

 which give no clue to the species. Probably Q. Ilex varies in leaf as 

 much or more than any other of the genus. It has this resemblance 

 to the true holly, after which it is named, that the leaves have some- 

 times sharply spiny, and sometimes quite smooth, wavy, edges, but 

 so far I have never noticed in the case of the oak, what is often to 

 be seen on hollies, both forms on the same plant. I have examined 

 samples of some twenty Q. Ilex raised by my friend Mr. Victor 

 Ames from acorns collected near Florence. Nearly all of these had 

 pronounced thorny edges, but one had a mass of tiny, crumpled, 

 spineless leaves set very closely together, which approach nearly, 

 although they are not quite so eccentric in form as, the named variety 

 described in the books as Q. Ilex crisp a ; another, of which he sent 

 me samples, had very long, narrow, spineless leaves, almost in shape 

 like those of Q. incana. 



At Aldenham all the Q. Ilex which I have had for any time have 

 smooth spineless leaves. I have, however, two small plants, kindly 

 given me by Mr. Gerald Loder, which answer so nearly to the account 

 in Bean's " Trees and Shrubs," vol. ii. p. 313, of Q. Ilex latijolia that 

 I feel entitled to give them that name provisionally, though as they 

 are still quite young I feel no assurance that the large size and toothed 

 or serrated edges of the leaves are not mere juvenile forms, which may 

 disappear as the trees become more mature. 



Q. ilicijolia (Wangenheim), the Bear Oak. — I have had for 

 the last ten years or so plants of this dwarf or scrub oak growing at 

 Aldenham; they seem quite healthy but make very slow progress, 

 and the biggest of them is only 4 ft. 6 in. high : even in their natural 

 habitat, the Eastern United States, I believe they grow but slowly, 

 and seldom attain much more than 20 ft. The name given to this 

 species by American botanists of Q. nana seems to me vastly more 

 appropriate than the one adopted, on the ground of seniority, by 

 Kew, which heads this account. I am at a loss to see any resemblance 

 in the deciduous leaves of this tree to those of a holly, such as really 



