OAKS AT ALDENHAM. 



213 



Schneckii, because, though the former is the name under which this 

 oak came to me from Professor Sargent, the latter is according to 

 the gospel of Kew.* Dr. Henry remarks in " Trees and Shrubs," 

 p. 1252, that this species " is not likely to succeed in England," where 

 it cannot enjoy the very hot summers of its home in the Mississippi 

 basin. I am well aware that " one swallow does not make summer'' 

 — a true saying, which is certainly older than Aristotle — but judging 

 merely from the behaviour of my three specimens at Aldenham, 

 where they have been growing over sixteen years, they seem to do 

 very nearly as well as the commoner red and scarlet oaks, and two 

 of them are now over 15 ft. high, with a girth of 10 in. at 3 ft. above 

 ground, and the third is n ft. in height. I fully agree with another 

 remark of Dr. Henry, that without examination of the acorns few 

 would detect any difference between this and the Pin Oak, Q. palustris. 

 It is a well-looking tree enough, but is not sufficiently distinct to 

 justify a declaration, in the advertising style, that no gentleman's 

 country-seat should be without it. Truth to say, there are a good 

 many oaks besides Schneckii of which the special characteristics do 

 not, as the French say, jump to the eyes, and there are some which 

 no one could name with certainty without examining flowers and 

 fruit. Though no one, who had made any study of oaks and was 

 not purblind, could fail to recognize Q. marylandica at a glance, yet 

 plenty of people might confuse coccinea and palustris, or in the ever- 

 green section, though with less excuse, glabra and acuta. 



Leaves under cultivation vary extraordinarily and prove but 

 treacherous guides. I can recall a Chinese vine from which I have 

 gathered from one branch entire leaves, and leaves with three, four, 

 and five lobes. I know that some of my correspondents look on me 

 as a rank impostor because I have failed to identify a plant, of 

 which only one leaf was exhibited, and I have heard real experts con- 

 demned in the same way and quite as unreasonably. The difficulty 

 of identification is greatly intensified in the case of oaks, by the fact 

 that many of the exotics bear fruit very sparsely away from their 

 native land, and some do not do so at all, or at any rate not till they 

 have attained a greater age than they have yet been able to do in 

 this country. 



Q. semecarpifolia (Smith). — This sub-evergreen Himalayan oak 

 has not only the advantage of being the hardiest member of the genus 

 which comes from that quarter, but also of bearing the finest foliage 

 of any oak known to me, with the doubtful exception of Q. mary- 

 landica. It is exceedingly rare in European cultivation, and the 

 only one with which I am acquainted besides the two trees raised by 

 Mr. Gamble, and now flourishing in his Hampshire home at East 

 Liss, being about fifteen years old, and 19 ft. with a girth of 17 in- 

 and 13 ft. x 10J in. respectively (Journal R.H.S. vol. xl, p. 78), is 



* I have recently been informed that Professor Sargent was in error in 

 giving the name texana to this oak, and that the true original Q. texana of Buckley 

 is a different tree. 



