.NEWER DECIDUOUS TREES AND SHRUBS. 
465 
Quercus. Oak. 
We have but few additions to make to this genus, and these 
rather of the fancy order. 
Q. laciniata (Cut-leaf oak), known also as Q. salicifolia and 
Q. jilicifolia, is a curious variety, with leaves deeply cut at the 
edges and laciniated. 
Q. foliis variegatis (Variegated oak), both gold and silver, 
with leaves variegated with white or yellow and occasional 
streaks of red; well grown, quite showy and ornamental. 
Q. purpurea (Purple oak), has the foot-stalks of the leaves 
and its young shoots quite distinctly tinged with purple — even 
the young leaves, when they first appear, are very dark, as 
much so as the Purple beech, and, like this tree, becoming 
greener as the season advances. 
But of all the newer varieties recently introduced here, the 
Q. pendula (Weeping oak), is the most distinctive and remark- 
able. We have as yet, we believe, no trees of any size in the 
country. The largest tree known is at Moccas court, in Here- 
fordshire, England, which Mr. Loudon (Arbo : Brit. vol. 3, 
page 1732), describes as one of the most extraordinary trees 
of the oak kind in existence ; the height of the trunk to the first 
branch is eighteen feet, total height of the trunk seventy-five feet, 
with branches reaching from about the middle of its height to 
within seven feet of the ground, and hanging down like cords ; 
many of these branches are thirty feet long and no thicker in 
any part of their length than a common wagon rope. There is 
another variety of Weeping oak to be found in our nurseries, 
and which we have had here, but the inclination of the branches 
is more rigid and less pendulous and graceful than the Moccas 
oak, and we much doubt if we have ever had this species here. 
To persons curious in trees, or who are desirous of making 
plantations of the many dwarfs at present quite the fashion in 
England, we would suggest here two varieties of oak interest- 
ing for this purpose ; viz., Quercus humilis (the low growing 
oak), a native of Europe, where it never exceeds a height of 
three to four feet, and in the Landes near Bordeaux, not over 
one foot ; and Q. pumila (an American dwarf), which seldom 
exceeds twenty inches. 
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