THE YOUNG 



— a ghastly object in the otherwise 

 leafy scene. But the oak, in such 

 cases, has a wonderful recuperative 

 power of putting forth fresh foliage^ 

 and by midsummer it will be as um- 

 brageous as ever. 



Critical botanists have split up the 

 oak into three species — Quercus pedun- 

 culata, Q. intermedia, and Q. sessili- 

 Jlor a,— tliQ extreme forms are easily 

 recognized, pedunculata having the 

 acorns borne on stalks whilst the 

 leaves are sessile ; in sessiliflora the 

 acorns are sessile and the leaves are 

 stalked ; the leaves are also more dila- 

 ted at the tip, and the sinuate lobes 

 are more obtuse and rounded, but all 

 gradations of intermediate varieties 

 occur. ]n longevity Ihe oak is ex- 

 celled by very few trees ; in this coun- 

 try it is only rivalled by the yew. Its 

 growth is slow, requiring at least one 

 hundred years to become a serviceable 

 timber tree. As the old rliyme says — 



" Three centuries he grows ; and three he 

 stays 



Supreme in state ; and in three more 

 decays." 



Historical trees are known of more 

 than that age, and calculations from 

 the size and appearance of certain trees 

 have given them an antiquity of more 

 than 1800 years. In size the oak far 

 outstrips all our indigenous forest trees. 

 The most gigantic example known was 

 pre-historic, and was dug out of Hat- 

 field bog: it measured 120 feet in 

 length, 12 ft. in diameter at the base, 



NATUEALIST. 27 



10 ft. in the middle, and 6 ft. at the 

 top, where it was broken ofP. At 

 Dudley Castle is to be seen an oak 

 table made of a single solid plank, 75 

 ft. long and 3 ft. wide thoughout its 

 entire length. The tree grew in the 

 adjoining park. At Winchester is 

 shown the yet more famous table, 18 

 feet in diameter, made of a cross sec- 

 tion of a single oak-tree, and reputed 

 to be the veritable "round table'' at 

 which King Arthur sat surrounded by 

 his brave and trusty knights. Com- 

 pared with these mammoths the present 

 denizens of our forests seem puny and 

 degenerate, although some of them 

 have furnished 1500 feet of serviceable 

 timber, and it must be remembered 

 that during the last century, when 

 Britain was struggling for the supre- 

 macy of the seas, almost every available 

 tree was sought out and utilized in 

 shipbuilding. The patriarchs of our 

 present forests are those which were 

 preserved from sentimental associations 

 or unsuitability for practical purposes. 

 The most noted of these is the Cow- 

 thorpe oak in the vicinity of York, 

 which has a circumference at the base 

 of 7 6 feet. Seventy people have found 

 standing room in its hollow bole, and 

 the spread of its branches overshadowed 

 half an acre of ground. One limb 

 which fell during a storm in the begin- 

 ning of last century weighed over five 

 tons — a goodly tree in itself. It is 

 calculated to be coeval with the Chris- 



