OAKS AT ALDENHAM. 



209 



opinion expressed that many of these are merely geographical variants 

 of the same species. 



Again, it may well be that a plant has well-defined differences of 

 construction or features of fruit or flower which fully justify its being 

 regarded as a separate species, and yet leave it neither noticeably 

 different externally from some well-known tree or shrub, nor in itself 

 attractive or ornamental. The converse is also true that a tree may 

 be botanically undistinguishable from the type, and yet be startlingly 

 divergent in appearance, so that the uninitiated would not suppose 

 it to belong to the same order. 



How distinct is the look of Robinia Pseudacacia monophylla and of 

 Fraxinus excelsa monophylla in eyes accustomed to the pinnate leaves 

 of the so-called acacia and common ash ! How much more effective 

 and valuable in a pleasure-ground is a weeping ash, or a good form 

 of golden elm or a fern-leaved beech than many a true species ! N ow 

 I have made the best defence I can of varieties in which I have always 

 been interested, and must get back to oaks, from which I ought never 

 to have wandered. 



Q. fthillyraeoides (A. Gray). — This Japanese evergreen, like several 

 others with persistent leaves whose home is in the East, will, I feel 

 confident, never make a real tree here, and indeed in no place does 

 it apparently ever exceed some 30 ft. in height. The older existing 

 plants were first brought from Japan in 1861 by a collector for Kew, 

 but the later introductions, such as my own plant, which measures 

 but 1 ft. 3 in. in height with a spread of 2 ft. across, were introduced 

 from China, and spring from acorns collected by Wilson. I have 

 only had it two or three years but it seems already quite at home. 



The oval leathery leaves are of small size and of a bright green 

 colour, which is darker on the upper than on the under side. It makes 

 a cheerful attractive bush and is well deserving a place in the shrubbery, 

 although it is not much use recommending people to acquire plants 

 like this when I should not have the wildest notion how to get another 

 if I wanted it myself. 



It possesses the great advantage of being quite hardy. I don't 

 know how many degrees of frost would be required to kill it, but I 

 can only say that it was entirely unaffected by the 33 0 with which 

 we were troubled in February 1919, which proved fatal to Q. incana, 

 and nearly if not quite killed three unnamed Chinese evergreen oaks 

 besides very seriously injuring Q. glabra and slightly Q. densiflora. 

 Of course its entire escape from injury may be due to the protection 

 of snow which enabled many of my more tender plants to resist a cold 

 which without it would have been fatal. It strikes me as particularly 

 healthy, though evergreen oaks, with the exception of the Ilex and 

 Lucombe type, do not as a rule take so kindly to our heavy clay as the 

 deciduous kind. The specimen at Kew is about 16 ft. high. This 

 species is described in "Plantae Wilsonianae," vol. hi. pp. 233-4, 

 where it is stated that it is usually only a shrub in its own habitat 

 but occasionally makes a small tree, 6 to 8 metres high. 



