Chap. 8.] 
THE OTHEE ACORT^-S. 
347 
robur, the sesculus, the cerrus, the holm-oak/^ and the cork- 
tree it is contained in a rivelled calyx, which embraces 
more or less of it, according to the several varieties. The 
leaves of these trees, those of the holm-oak excepted, are 
weighty, pulpy, long, and jagged at the edges, and they do 
not turn yellow before they fall, as with the beech : they are 
also longer or shorter, as the case may be. 
There are two kinds of holm-oak : one of them, which 
belongs to Italy, has a leaf not very unlike that of the olive ; 
some of the Greeks give it the name of milax,"^^ and in our 
provinces it is known as the aquifolia. The acorn of these 
two kinds is shorter and more slender than in the others : 
Homer ^2 calls it acylos," and by that name distinguishes it 
from the ordinary acorn : it is generally said that the male 
tree of the holm-oak bears no fruit. 
The best acorn, and the very largest, is that which grows 
upon the quercus, and the next to it is the fruit of the sescu- 
lus : that of the robur, again, is diminutive, and the fruit of 
the cerrus has a meagre, wretched look, being enclosed in a 
calyx covered with prickles, like the outer coat of the ches- 
nut. With reference to the acorn of the quercus, that which 
grows upon the female tree^^ is sweeter and more tender, 
while that of the male is more solid and compact. The acorn, 
however, of the latifolia^ is the most esteemed, an oak so 
" Ilex." Fee thinks that the varieties known as the Prinos and the 
Ballota were often confounded by the ancients with the " ilex " or " holm- 
oak." This tree, he says, hears no resemblance to the ordinary oak, except 
in the blossoms and the fruit. It is the Ilex of Linnaeus, the " yeuse," or 
" green oak," of the French. 
The Quercus suber of Linnaeus ; it is found more particularly in the 
department of the Landes in France. 
^0 As Fee remarks, Pliny is clearly in error here ; one kind being the 
veritable ilex or holm oak, the other, the aquifolium or holly, quite a dif- 
ferent tree. 
^1 The smilax or milax was a real holm oak, but the aquifolia was the holly. 
^2 Od. xi. 242. Fee remarks that the berry of the holly has no reseni*- 
blance to the acorn whatever, and he says that this statement of Pliny al- 
most leads him to think that the second variety here mentioned by him was 
not in reality the holly, but a variety of the quercus. 
^3 Fee observes that, properly speaking, there is no sex in the oak, the 
individuals being neither male nor female. The Flora Danica however, as 
he observes, gives the name of " Quercus foemina" to the Quercus racemosa 
of Lamarck. 
54 Or " broad-leaved " oak ; one of the varieties of the Quercus sessili- 
fiora of Smith — Flor. Brit, 
