136 
WAYSIDE AND WOODLAND TREES. 
introduced to Italy in very remote times, and has since spread 
over most of temperate Europe, its seeds ripening and sowing 
themselves wherever the vine flourishes. We appear to be 
indebted to our friends the Romans for its introduction to 
Britain, who no doubt hoped to utilize the fruit for food, as at 
home — a hope that must have been disappointed, for its crops, 
even in the South of England, are very fitful, and the nuts quite 
small. 
In suitable situations the Chestnut is of larger proportions 
and greater length of life even than the Oak. In the South of 
England it will attain a height of from sixty to eighty feet in 
fifty or sixty years, and if growing in deep porous loam, free 
from carbonate of lime, and sheltered from strong winds and 
frosts, it builds up an erect massive column. Hamerton has 
said of such a tree ; “ His expression is that of sturdy strength ; 
his trunk and limbs are built, not like those of Apollo, but like 
the trunk and limbs of Hercules.” Under less suitable con- 
ditions the undivided trunk is little more than ten feet long ; 
then it divides off into several huge limbs, and so the general 
character of the tree is altered, and it presents much the 
appearance of having been pollarded. The branches have a 
horizontal and downward habit of growth, the extremities of 
the lowest ones often being but little above the earth. The fine 
elliptical leaves are nine or ten inches in length, of a rich green, 
that is enhanced by the polished surface, which “ brings up” the 
colour. Their edges are cut into long pointed teeth. Towards 
autumn they pale to light yellow, and then deepen into gold on 
their way to the final brown of the fallen leaf, which, by the 
way, is a great enricher of the soil where the Chestnut i.s 
grown. 
The flowers, though individually small and inconspicuous, are 
rather striking, from their association in cylindrical yellow catkins, 
about six inches long, which hang from the axils of the leaves. 
The upper part of this catkin consists of male flowers, each with 
