214 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



that at Tregrehan in Cornwall, which in 1916 was from 15 to 16 ft. 

 high. 



The name semecarpijolia was devised by Sir J. E. Smith, who 

 would have done better if he had called it semecarpiphylla and used 

 a name composed of three Greek words instead of one made up of two 

 Greek and one Latin. Semecarpus, which I take it means " with 

 remarkable fruit," is a generic name in the order Anacardiaceae, 

 and the suggestion is that the leaves of this oak recall the Semecarpus ; 

 how far that may be so I know not, for no Semecarpus has ever come 

 my way. Anyhow, the leaves of this oak are " a sight for sore eyes," 

 being large, of fleshy texture, with a corrugated surface, a rich dark 

 green colour on the upper side, the under being adorned by an orange- 

 buff down ; they are usually rounded at the apex, and in mature trees 

 the margins are wavy, but in young ones spiny; they are broad for 

 their length, being usually about 3 in. long by 2 in. broad. 



Q. serrala (Thunberg). — This deciduous oak is said to have been 

 first introduced into England from Japan in 1862, but it is still quite 

 a rarity in European cultivation, and fruit of it was collected by 

 Wilson in one of his Chinese expeditions, and the best of my two 

 specimens, now 10 ft. high, is doubtless from that country, and one 

 of the many botanical results of that explorer's zeal and capacity. 



The tree is described in Elwes' " Trees of Great Britain," in 

 Bean's " Trees and Shrubs," as also in " Plantae Wilsonianae," vol. 

 iii. pp. 217-9, where it is stated to be a common low-level oak of the 

 Yangtsze Valley, making " a handsome tree 25 metres tall, with stout 

 widespreading branches." I have never had the good fortune to 

 look at a specimen which was anywhere near approaching maturity, 

 though I might have seen a good tree in Veitch's nursery garden at 

 Coombe Wood, and Mr. Elwes records one 40 ft. high at Beauport, 

 Sussex. A distinguishing feature in the leaves of this oak, which 

 are long, very narrow, and sharply lobed, is that the lateral nerves 

 terminate in bristles along the edges. 



Q. sessiliflora (Salisbury), Durmast Oak. — This oak, though 

 common enough in the North, is not, I think, so usually seen in the 

 South of England, and there are certainly none in our neighbour- 

 hood except young trees introduced by myself, and which are not yet 

 important enough to deserve any notice. 



In " Trees of Great Britain " Mr. Elwes states that it is usually 

 found on the poorer soils which have never been touched by the 

 plough, and gives the Wyre Forest, the Forest of Dean, and the district 

 about Burnham Beeches as places in the South of England where it 

 is the prevailing tree. He records as many as fifteen named varieties 

 of this oak. We have but some seven or eight, of which the only one 

 with foliage of abnormal coloration is Q. sessiliflora rubicunda, where 

 the leaves old and young are of a light thin pale-red shade. Of my 

 two specimens one is ill-shaped, and though it has been sixteen years on 

 its present site has never got well hold of the ground and is not now 

 8 ft. high ; this, however, may be no indication of the way in which 



