158 
THE PURPLE BEECH TREE. 
Society's garden in June, 1834. During the time of growing, I keep them on a 
shelf, or trellis, in front of the greenhouse, having upright lights about five feet 
high, and 1 give them plenty of air, carefully avoiding the least application of heat, 
which would draw them up weak, cause the flowers to be much smaller, and very 
much injure their colours. By these means I have had them continue in bloom for 
full four weeks." 
THE PURPLE BEECH TREE. 
In a work devoted chiefly to floriculture, it may appear irrelevant to allude to 
forest trees ; the subject, however, of this short article is one of surpassing beauty, 
and it possesses so many interesting qualities that we may be permitted to be a 
little excursive in its favour. ■ 
We must first view it botanically, and herein shall derive great assistance from 
that instructive little work, " Ladies' Botany," by Dr. Lindley. The Linnsean 
system refers the beech (Fagus) to its twenty-first class, Moncecia^ a term 
derived from two Greek words, monos, one, and oikos, a house or residence. The 
flowers are of two sexes, separately situated on the same tree : the characters of 
the genus or family are : — Barren, or male flower, a roundish catkin (amentum). 
Parianth single, of one leaf cut into six parts. Stamens from five to ten, or 
more. Fertile flowers two, within a four-lobed prickly covering (involucrum). 
Perianth, or calyx, single, pitcher-shaped (urceolate, from urceolus, a jug or 
pitcher), cut into about five small lobes. Germen three-celled, one only being 
fertile. Styles three. Nuts, or et mast," covered with the involucrum, containing 
only one seed. 
This peculiar structure is elucidated by the following quotation ; which also 
exhibits the style in which plants are investigated by the professors of the natural, 
or we would rather call it the physiological, system of botany. We now refer 
our readers to Letter X. of the work just named, p. 138 to 147 ; and for our 
present purpose extract, nearly verbatim, the following passages. There is a most 
interesting natural order, which, in consequence of its containing the oak, is 
termed the oak tribe ; it includes also the sweet chestnut, the beech, the horn-beam, 
and the hazel (page 138). 
" In the oak itself the involucre is formed of a great many rows of scales, 
which gradually grow larger and harder, and more numerous, and at last become 
what you call the cup of the acorn ; a part you would never have guessed could 
have been made out of a number of little leaves, if you had not watched their 
successive changes. The ovary at first contains three cells, and each cell two 
young seeds ; but, in obedience to the constant command of nature, one of the 
seeds grows faster than the rest, presses upon the other cells and seeds, and 
gradually crushes them, till at last, when the acorn is ripe, all trace of them has 
disappeared." The oak is the type or pattern of the tribe or order. " In the 
leech the involucre originally consists of a vast quantity of little thread-like leaves, 
which enclose a couple of pistils. These leaves gradually grow together, and over 
