THE WHITE BEAM— continued. 
sticky secretion. The delicate tissues of these buds may frequently be found in 
winter congealed to ice and yet in no way permanently injured. The leathery scales, 
gummy excretion, and thick felt of hair on the exposed under surfaces of the ribs of 
the leaves, all seem to be mainly effective by keeping off moisture from the outside 
and probably by also moderating the suddenness of any changes of temperature. It 
is noticeable that as the leaf-buds unfold they always assume a vertical position, like 
a row of white pillars, whatever may be the position of the shoot that bears them. 
The downiness of shoots and leaves extends to the stalks of the broad flat clusters of 
white flowers, and even to the lower part of the two to four styles which each flower 
contains. 
The flowers are followed by the many sub-globose fruits, each about half an inch 
in diameter. By October these have ripened to a bright scarlet, but are dotted over 
with the numerous little brown lenticel-like points which have given them the name 
of Chess-apples. The orange-coloured flesh of these little apples is mealy and at first 
acid and astringent. Like that of the Medlar, however, it undergoes a change known 
as bletting, especially, perhaps, after a slight touch of frost, by which it is rendered 
palatable. In times of famine these fruits have been dried and ground as a material 
for bread, and it is probably to the recollection of such a use that the tree owes the 
German name of Mehlbeerbaum (meal-berry-tree). They have also been fermented 
into a beer and distilled, as are those of the Rowan, for spirit. Squirrels, hedgehogs, 
and birds eat them with avidity. 
Although on the exposed slopes of the North and South Downs, or the 
Chiltern Hills, or when waving fr*m the limestone crags of the gorge of the Wye, or 
even from the ruined arches of Tintern, the White Beam is but four or five feet 
high, or little more than a bush, in more sheltered spots it becomes a tree with a 
single smooth bole reaching three or four feet in girth and thirty or forty feet in 
total height, with slender ascending branches which give it a graceful pyramidal 
outline. Although in a wild state this species is distinctly calciphile, whatever the 
fact of the plant growing on calcareous soils may actually indicate physiologically, 
under cultivation it seems to do perfectly well in any good well-drained garden soil, 
so, perhaps, in this, as apparently in other cases, the real preference is for a light 
well-drained soil which is not acid in reaction. 
