REV. M. C. H. BIRD ON ACORNS. 
335 
When our country school children celebrate Oakapple Day,t 
by wearing a few Oak-leaves in their buttonholes on May 
29th, they combine two distinct events — the commemoration 
of Charles II. 's hiding in the Boscobel Oak after the Battle 
of Worcester, in September, 1651, with his return to England 
on his birthday, May 29th, 1660, when the Royalists dis- 
played sprigs of Oak in allusion to his successful concealment 
amongst the foliage of that royal tree nine years previously. 
Had he attempted to hide in an Oak at the end of an ordinary 
May he would not in all probability have found the leaves 
sufficiently dense to conceal him from the prying eyes of the 
Roundheads. An ingenious lad once made to me the plausi- 
ble suggestion that u it might have been an Evergreen Oak.” 
But, unfortunately, Quercus ilex was not introduced into 
England until nearly the end of the 16th Century, and in 
1755 Gilbert White writes of it as a rarity. 
Whilst passing along our country roads, we cannot help 
being struck by the apparent similarity of age of most of the 
hedcerow Oaks, which fact suggests how much of such timber 
planting must have been done at or about the same time. 
In consequence of the value of the wood for shipbuilding, 
Oak timber was protected by Act of Parliament in the reign 
of Henry VIII., and by the end of the 16th Century, Oak 
planting became common ; but most of our hedgerow Oaks 
are not older than the Enclosure Acts of the end of the 18th 
and the first decade of the 19th Century; in fact, the date of 
the enclosure of the common fields in any district may be 
* I have now five seedling Oaks raised in pot in cool greenhouse, 
gathered on same day from same Oak tree. One of these saplings is 
now (March 26th) quite a week forwarder in foliation than any of the 
others, but it is not the strongest plant. In twin and triplet acorns, 
so far as my experience goes, no two embryos ever germinate simul- 
taneously, sometimes not within a fortnight of one another, but the 
first to start into growth is generally the strongest plant. 
t The large, soft and many-eelled galls, commonly called Oak 
apples, caused by an insect ( Andricus terminalis ) are generally 
common towards the end of May. 
