Part 39

First and foremost in any list of British trees should come the Oak, in utter disregard of all botanical classification, for not only was our supremacy of the sea and our existence as a nation gained by aid of our oaken walls, but a grand old Oak is finely typical of British solidity, strength and endurance. Fifteen years may be regarded as the average age at which the oak first produces its fruit, the acorn, and it continues to ripen its annual crop for centuries. Dryden has certainly not exaggerated in his lines that tell how--

“The monarch oak, the patriarch of trees, Shoots rising up, and spreads by slow degrees; Three centuries he grows, and three he stays, Supreme in state, and in three more decays.”

According to the records and traditions relating to many hollow ruins of enormous girth still living at their circumference though long since dead at heart, Dryden’s nine-century tree is only middle-aged. Well-nigh every district in this country, not too high above sea-level, can show its monster Oak; but it is where the soil is close and heavy that it is seen at its best. There is no doubt about the Oak being a true native. Some of our Oak-forests are older than history: such was the forest of the Weald--Anderides-leag--in which the aboriginal Britons so long withstood the attempts of Romans and English to conquer them, and which at a much later date supplied alike much iron from its quarries and the oak charcoal wherewith to smelt it; and of which to-day the pedestrian-tourist from London to the South Coast will cross many considerable fragments. How widely it was grown is evident from the vast number of place-names of which it forms part, such as Okham, Ockshott, Ockley, Acton, Acworth, Acrington, Okehampton, Oxted, etc.

Castanea vulgaris.

--CUPULIFERÆ.--]

Our British Oak is Quercus robur, of which there are several varieties to which some authorities give specific rank, but their characters are too inconstant to be so regarded. However, as they are frequently called by their distinctive names, it were well to mention them and their chief differences.

White Oak (Q. robur, var. pedunculata) has the leaves slightly stalked or stalkless, and the acorns with long, slender stalks.

Red Oak (Q. robur, var. sessiliflora) has the leaves borne on long yellow stalks, and the acorns supported on very short stalks, or quite stalkless (sessile).

Durmast (Q. robur, var. intermedia), with acorns and leaves on short stalks, and the underside of the leaves downy. Spiders are said to object to the wood of this tree, and will not spin their webs where it has been used for building purposes.

The flowers of the Oak are of two distinct sexes. Those bearing stamens are grouped on a long, slender and pendulous catkin; each consisting of a four- to seven-lobed calyx, within which are ten stamens. The females are solitary and erect, consisting of a cupule, within which is a three- to eight-lobed calyx, a three-celled ovary with three styles. The cupule becomes the familiar “cup” of the acorn, which again is the enlarged ovary, two cells of which have aborted. Flowers April and May.

Quercus robur, var. pedunculata.

--CUPULIFERÆ.--]

The Oak forms the world of a great number of insects, many of which are either parasites (gall-flies which produce Oak-apples, bullet-galls, spangles, and other forms of gall) or their lodgers. Several fungi, too, specially select old Oaks upon which to live freely. Chief among these is the remarkable Beef-steak fungus (Fistulina hepatica), of which in October a hundred-weight might be quickly gathered in an oakwood.

=Hazel= (Corylus avellana).

The Hazel is one of the most look-ahead kind of trees, for almost before this year’s nuts have all dropped off, or been picked off, she puts out the tiny, cylindric grey bodies that continue to lengthen all the winter and by February have become loose and open. Then it can be seen that these catkins consist of male flowers, for the yellow stamens are evident, and soon every breeze shakes out a little cloud of yellow pollen. Looked at analytically, the catkin is seen to be made up of a large number of scaly bracts, of which one large and two small go to a flower, and these are so arranged as to form a pent-house roof over the eight stamens. The female flowers are altogether different. They each consist of a two-celled ovary, with two slender, crimson styles, and enclosed in a kind of calyx, three-parted. Two of these flowers are then associated in a bud-like involucre, situated at the end of a twig. In spring, before the leaves appear, these open and the crimson stigmas are put forth to catch a little of the flying pollen. By September one cell of the ovary has developed into a hard shell containing one large seed (kernel) and clasped by a large raggedly-cut hood--the developed involucre.

When the tips of the nutshells become brown-tinged, then appear boys, squirrels, dormice and nuthatches, and by their combined industry the tree or bush is soon despoiled of its load.

Corylus avellana.

--CUPULIFERÆ.--]

All the many varieties of Filberts, Kentish-Cobs, Spanish-nuts, and Barcelona-nuts are but varieties of Corylus avellana.

The name is from the Greek, Korus, a helmet, from the form of the involucre.

=The Hornbeam= (Carpinus betulus).

It is in our experience that though many townsmen think they know the Beech there are comparatively few of them that cannot be deceived into accepting the Hornbeam as Fagus sylvatica. It must be admitted that there is a strong superficial resemblance to a small Beech; but on closer examination it will be found that the differences are greater than the likeness. The Hornbeam has a light-grey smooth bark, but instead of the very round trunk of the Beech, that of the Hornbeam appears to have been laterally squeezed, for the diameter taken one way is longer or shorter than if taken at right angles to the first measurement. Then again the leaf of Carpinus if placed upon that of Fagus will be found to be much less rotund in proportion to its length; the surface is rough, and instead of the cleanly cut margins of Fagus we have a coarse double-toothing.

The Hornbeam when full-grown is a much smaller tree than the Beech, rarely exceeding seventy feet in height, with a trunk circumference of ten feet; whereas the Beech reaches a height of considerably over a hundred feet, with a girth of nearly thirty feet. When naturally grown, too, it is by no means so picturesque as the Beech, but in places where it is most plentiful, as in Essex, especially Epping Forest, it is generally pollarded, and seldom allowed to exhibit its true form.

The male flowers form a pendulous catkin, originating in the axils, and each consisting of an egg-shaped bract, holding about a dozen stamens at its base. The female flowers form an erect flower-head, shaped like an artichoke at the end of a twig, the three-lobed bracts each containing two flowers. After fertilization these lobes enlarge considerably, and the flower-head lengthens into the pendulous string of fruits shown in our illustration. The flowers appear in May.

Carpinus betulus.

--CUPULIFERÆ.--]

=The Osier= (Salix viminalis).

The Willow family, to which the Osier belongs, is, like the Brambles, a difficult group even for the botanist, and he is a bold man or a very clever one who undertakes to identify specimens off-hand. They have suffered much at the hands of the “splitter.” Hooker gives the number of British species as eighteen, with a considerable number of varieties; but by Babington many of these varieties are given specific rank, and his list of species runs to fifty-eight. It would, of course, be absurd for us to attempt in this restricted space to give a key even to Hooker’s list; but our details of the flower structure, etc., will be found to apply in the main to all willows, and for a knowledge of the other species our readers must refer to Hooker. It should be added that, to increase the difficulties of the botanist, the plants that bear male flowers as a rule differ considerably from those that produce female flowers; for with scarcely an exception each plant is of one sex only.