igo JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



roots. Grafting, I may mention here, is not a thing like matrimony 

 which can be entered on " lightly and unadvisedly, " for the stocks 

 have to be prepared twelvemonths beforehand, and, to secure a reason- 

 able prospect of success, the work must be done under glass and not 

 in the open. 



I have besides the above a variety of Lucombe which has no counter- 

 part at Kew either in life or in the herbarium, nor, as far as I can 

 ascertain, anywhere else, and to which accordingly I have for purposes 

 of identification given my own Christian name, Q. X Lucombeana 

 Vicarii. This is a shapely, well-grown tree, over 17 ft. high and having 

 a girth of 1 ft. 4 in. at 3 ft. above ground. In growth, wood, buds, 

 and general appearance there is nothing at first sight to differentiate it 

 from a small-leaved variety of the Turkey Oak, but expert investiga- 

 tion shows the under side of the leaves to be too downy for it to 

 be possible for the tree to be pure Cerris, and it has been definitely 

 pronounced to be an unusual form of Lucombe. The little thin 

 oval leaves with tapering apex are practically uniform in size all 

 over the tree, that size being about ij in. long by J in. broad; 

 they are fringed with fourteen neat little teeth or lobes, con- 

 trasting in that respect markedly with the coarse dentation of an 

 ordinary Cerris leaf. In mild winters this oak is evergreen, though 

 that phenomenon may not be preserved when the tree reaches the 

 fruiting stage. In spite of the fact that one night in February, 1919, 

 our glasses registered i° below zero (a cruel dispensation, provided 

 exclusively, I think, to scourge Aldenham), the leaves though brown 

 and dry were still adhering to the branches in March of this year. 



Q. lusitanica (Lamarck), Portuguese Oak. — This medium-sized 

 deciduous tree was introduced into England in 1835, but is still 

 extremely rare, and in 1910 Mr. Elwes writes in " Trees of Great 

 Britain " that the only plants which he had seen were at Kew. Till 

 quite recently I should have said that we had seven or eight healthy 

 specimens 8 to 10 ft. high, but unfortunately these, when submitted 

 to the Kew experts, have been pronounced to be merely a variety 

 of our pedunculate oak with very neat regular lobing, so that I now 

 find myself with but one true plant of this oak which I acquired in 

 1914, and which is but a little thing and not too healthy. 



As its name implies, its habitat is the Iberian peninsula. The 

 leathery leaves are about 2A in. long by ij in. wide, and are coarsely 

 toothed on the edges ; in colouring they are of a dull grey green, being 

 covered on the under side with a dense greyish felt, as is also the case 

 with the twigs or branchlets. 



Outside Kew it seems doubtful if there are any trees over 20 ft. 

 high now living in the British Isles. This seems to be one of the most 

 variable of oaks, though only three varieties are recorded in " Trees 

 of Great Britain," namely, Brotcri, jaginea, and alpesiris, which 

 I have never possessed,* but I have many young plants about 6 or 



* As to forms of Mirbechii which correspond to these three varieties, see 

 later sub Q. Mirbeckii. 



