04 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
April 27. 
decided preference to the former, and attributes to it the 
roofs of many of our old Halls, hitherto supposed to be of 
Spanish Chesnut. In this good opinion he is opposed to 
Mr. Loudon, who condemned the timber of the sessile- 
flowered Oak. I have not the Magazine at hand to refer to, 
hut I remember, several years ago, my attention being called 
to these two varieties by communications from the Rev. 
Mr. Bree, and observations by Mr. Loudon, in his Magazine, 
and I long sought in vain for a tine specimen of sessilijlora, 
although the variety occurs plentifully as copswood, in the 
North of Devon. At Whitliy Abbey, near Coventry, in Mr. 
Bree’s own neighbourhood, I could not find one; and the 
first fine specimen I met with was at Yaenor Park, Mont¬ 
gomeryshire. There was no mistaking my friend, even at 
a distance, and whatever may be the merit of the timber, I 
can bear witness to the picturesque beauty of the tree. The 
greater number of the Oaks in this neighbourhood were 
sessile-flowered, and, thanks to the kindness of the pro¬ 
prietor, I have a well-filled bed of seedlings. I wish, how¬ 
ever, to meet with some of a larger growth, six or ten feet 
high, for planting next autumn ; and as others may have 
the same desire, I trust that Mr. Beaton’s notice, and this 
letter, may be the means of bringing some advertisements 
to your paper, and some more remarks upon the merits of 
this tree. I do not think the variety has met with sufficient 
notice from nurserymen; indeed, they generally seem 
scarcely to know it, except by name; and if Mr. Beaton’s 
estimate of its timber be correct, its general cultivation 
should be particularly encouraged. 
“ Quercus sessilijlora, is in habit very different from pc/l it li¬ 
eu lata ; of a deeper green; the leaf more regularly lobed, 
and the tree of a more pyramidal growth when young. The 
foliage hangs in more graceful folds, for (the precise 
reverse, both as to fruit and leaf, of the perlunculata) the 
leaf, instead of the acorn, is furnished with a footstalk, 
which gives it a graceful fall. 
“ At a distance, an old sessilijlora bears some resemblance 
to a Spanish Chesnut, as, according to Mr. Beaton, its timber 
does when felled. I believe it to he of more rapid growth j 
than peditnculala, whence I should have inferred an inferior ] 
quality of timber, although it is an advantage to it as an 
ornamental tree.”— J. W. Walrond, Bradfield, Oollumplon. 
[It is an old but very mistaken notion, that the slowest- 
grown specimens of a given species of tree is the most 
durable. Experiments have been tried showing the con¬ 
trary to be the truth. The opinion entertained unfavourable 
to the timber of the Stalkless-flowered Oak (Q. sessilijlora ), 
is equally old, and equally erroneous. The rarity of fine 
specimens of it is attributable to the fact that our fore¬ 
fathers used the finest timber, and this was obtainable from 
the Q. sessiliflora. The panelling of some of our finest old 
Halls, the tomb of De Vere, Earl of Oxford, in Hcdingham 
Church, Essex; the roof of Westminster Hall ; the canoe, 
forty-two feet long, found buried in the soil in Ireland, and 
many others of the most enduring and fine-grained spe¬ 
cimens, are all the wood of this species of the Oak. 
We shall be much obliged by our readers informing us of 
any fine specimen of this variety at present existing. Some¬ 
where we have read that there is one more than one hundred 
feet high in Studley Park. There is a specimen about forty 
feet high on Lisgate Common, near Littlewortli. 
M. Vilmorin, writing in the Gardeners' Magazine for 1831, 
page 699, says, that “ Q. sessilijlora will grow in shallow, dry, 
gravelly soil a great deal better than Q. peditnculala ; and its 
wood is more firm, close, and heavy, and of better quality 
for fuel.” There is an excellent paper, illustrated with 
drawings, relative to the same species of Oak, in the same 
Magazine for 1830. At Nettlecombe Court, near Bridge- 
water, in Somersetshire, Mr. Loudon, writing in 1842, 
related from personal inspection, that “ the Oak woods 
contain a greater number of large well-grown trees than he 
ever saw together before. Many of them one hundred feet 
high, with clean trunks of nearly uniform thickness for half 
or two-thirds of their height, the diameter varying from 
three feet to six feet at four feet from the ground. They 
; are all, without a single exception, Q. sessilijlora; there 
| being scarcely a plant of Q. peduncnlata in the Park, or for 
a mile around it.”— {Gardeners' Magazine. 1842. p.485.) 
Q. sessilijlora is a species, and Q- pednnculata is now con¬ 
sidered as only a synonym of Q. robitr .] 
PIT EOR GERANIUMS, HEATHS, Ac. 
“ I want to erect a pit to grow a few Geraniums and 
Ericas, Ac. My ground will allow 30 feet in length, and as 
wide as would bo necessary. Please to give me your advice 
as to what would be tire best plan to adopt for heating, and 
the erection altogether.—A. J.” 
[See what Mr. Fish said the other week about pits ; the 
sinking of them, and the raising of them, Ac. In sinking 
below the ground level, Geraniums will feel quite at home ; 
but Heaths, unless you adopt the mode mentioned by a 
correspondent in the article referred to, of giving air near 
the base line, will require more care to keep them from 
mildew. Such a pit as No. 1, sketched the other week, will 
suit your purpose; if you merely wish a common pit from 
five to seven feet in length. Two, three, or four-inch pipes 
heated by water would cost you least trouble, though a 
small flue taken once along would answer well. 
But as in addition to the length 30 feet, you may have 
any width ; and if you wished to combine economy with 
ease and comfort, we would recommend a span-roofed pit; 
width ten or eleven feet; side-walls 18 or 24 inches above 
the ground-level; pathway of 2£ feet wide in the centre, and 
sufficiently sunk to admit of the easily clearing the head¬ 
way of a tall man; sides of the pathway held up by brick 
walls ; a platform of earth covered with sand, Ac.., of some 
3 feet 9 inches on each side for plants standing on : and a 
single four-inch pipe round the house. If you raised the side 
walls a foot or eighteen inches more, then, without any 
extra sinking of the middle path, you might heat the house 
by a flue passing along its centre, the top of the flue well- 
covered constituting the path-way; and then the two sides 
might be a level platform, or a sloping staged one, having 
regular rows of plants, the tallest next the outside, and the 
smallest next the centre, so as to admit of all being easily 
examined, watered, Ac. Under this arrangement, it would 
be best if the pit stood with its ends somewhat north and 
south. Such pits would be more uniform in temperature 
than houses or pits elevated. If instead of merely sinking 
the path you excavated the whole space, and had a latticed 
platform on each side, or slate, or other shelves, you would 
gain the means of storing many things, such as Fuchsias, 
old Scarlet Geraniums, Dahlia roots, Ac., on the ground 
beneath your platform ; but your plants will require more 
attention than when set on a platform of earth, and there 
will be an additional expense for platform or stage, when 
the earth, in the other case, would serve all the necessary 
purpose. 
Supposing you could command a width of fourteen or 
fifteen feet, then, if the expense did not come in the way, 
aud to avoid the going down into a house, instead of step- 
ing up to one, we would recommend you to discard the pit, 
and have a nice, low, span-roofed house,—height of the 
apex, 9 or 10 feet from floor; width, 14 feet in the clear; 
side-walls all round, 3 feet; glass, 3 feet.; door both ends ; 
side-shelves allround, 1ft. loin, each; pathway round, 3 
feet; trellised platform in the centre; shelf and platform 
from 2$ ft. to 2 ft. 0 in. from the floor level; two hot-water 
pipes all round. In such a house you could always com¬ 
mand comfort and pleasure, and could grow first-rate spe¬ 
cimens if so disposed. The simple pit will grow things 
well; but then you cannot look at them and work amongst 
them in all weathers. The span-roofed pit, with a path 
sunk in the centre, would be the most economical, if the i 
examining of the plants be considered.] 
WHITE SALVIA PATENS SHEDDING ITS FLOWER ! 
BUDS. 
“ A White Salvia, last year, always dropped its buds; 
what is the reason of this ? I am told the pot is too small; 
but as the reverse of this is generally the cause of bud 
dropping, I await your reply. The soil was rather poor 
than rich, moderately watered, growing in a west balcony; 
pot eight inches across ; a first year’s plant.—A." 
[We presume the White Salvia, is the White Patens. It 
is apt to drop its buds whenever allowed to get dry, or on 
very poor soil out-of-doors. Your light soil in a pot was 
right enough, but it should have had some rich dressing on 
the surface, or manure waterings. It is also very likely that 
the west balcony, without a little shade, aud the least dry- 
