THE OAK — continued. 
Durmast Oak, is said to retain its withered leaves longer into the spring and to have 
inferior timber resembling the wood of the Sweet Chestnut in appearance, and in 
being distasteful to spiders. The roofs of many medieval buildings in various parts 
of the country are traditionally but erroneously reputed to be of Chestnut. A cross 
cut of the wood of these timbers will show the conspicuous pith-rays which at once 
distinguish Oak wood from Chestnut. 
The catkins of our Oaks appear shortly after the leaves : the staminate ones 
pendulous, the few-flowered female ones erect. The former are two or three inches 
long, bearing at intervals sessile clusters of inconspicuous flowers, each made up of 
a six- or seven-lobed hairy calyx and ten stamens with slender filaments. The female 
flowers, on the other hand, are solitary, each being surrounded by the numerous 
minute overlapping scales or bracts that are later on conspicuous on the exterior of 
the “ cup ” of the acorn. The flower itself is but the three chambered ovary with 
an adherent calyx and a style dividing above into three broad and spreading stigmatic 
lobes. Stamens and stigmas are thus well fitted for pollination by wind. In each 
of the three chambers of the ovary there are two ovules ; but of all six, only one, 
or sometimes two, become seeds. This reduction in the number of seeds as 
compared with that of the ovules is of frequent occurrence in many groups of trees, 
and suggests that such long-lived perennials, producing seed throughout a long series 
of years, require to produce far fewer in any one year to ensure the perpetuation 
and to maintain the number of individuals of their species than do annual plants. 
The cup of the acorn is an important distinctive character among the three 
hundred species of Oak. In Q. Robur it is much shorter than the ripe acorn, and its 
numerous minute scales are triangular, obtuse, and closely adpressed. The interior 
of the cup is apparently an outgrowth from the axis. The name acorn , which is 
ac corn, the corn of the Oak, suggests a time when even the bitter fruit of our 
northern species may have been an important article of human food, as well as 
“ pannage ” for swine. 
The bark, rich in tannin, has been largely replaced by cheaper but not superior 
materials for tanning ; but Oak timber, once almost the only wood employed in 
England for building ships and houses, fencing and furniture, is never likely to be 
superseded. Though neither the heaviest, the hardest, the toughest, nor, perhaps, 
the most durable of woods, it combines in an unequalled manner a high average in 
all these qualities. 
