265 
QUERCUS ROBUR. 
Common Oak* 
Class MoNCECiA. — Order Polyandria. 
Nat. Ord. Amentace^. 
Gen. Char. Male. Calyx commonly five-cleft. Corolla 
none. Stamens five to ten. 
Female. Calyx one-leafed, entire, rough. Co- 
rolla none. Styles two to five. Nut coriaceous, surrounded 
at the base by the persistent calyx. 
Spec. Char, Leaves deciduous, oblong, sinuses acute, an- 
gles obtuse. 
This species of oak is a native of Britain, and is also found in 
many parts of Europe, the north of Asia, and the northern extremity 
of Africa. This beautiful tree often rises to the height of eighty or 
ninety feet, and acquires an extraordinary magnitude in the trunk. 
The follov\'ing instances of the amazing size to which the trunk 
sometimes attains, we presume will not be uninteresting to our 
readers. In the year 1764, there was an oak growing in Broomfield 
Wood near Ludlow, Shropshire, the trunk of which measured sixty- 
eight feet in girth, and twenty-three in length ; this tree, allowing 
ninety square feet for the larger branches, contained one thousand 
four hundred and fifty-five feet of solid timber. An oak in the 
parish of Little Shelsley, Worcester, measured in circumference, at 
the distance of six feet from the ground, twenty-two feetfour inches ; 
and close to the ground, forty-eight feet. Green Dale Oak, near 
Welbeck, at eleven feet from the ground, measured thirty-eight feet. 
At Cowthorpe near Wetherley, Yorkshire, an oak measured seventy- 
eight feet in circumference close to the ground. f 
The economical purposes to which this tree has been applied are 
various. The wood by uniting toughness with hardness, is of general 
* Fig. a. a female flower, b. A male flower, c. The fruit, 
t Withering. 
VOL. II. 
