The Italian Oak will grow to the height of thirty feet. The branches are covered with a dark purplish bark. The leaves are smooth, and so deeply sinuated as to have some resemblance to pinnated leaves; each has a very short footstalk. The fruit of this species sits close to the spray. The cups

are in some degree prickly and rough, and each contains a long slender acorn that is eatable. This, says Hanbury, is the true Phagus of the Greeks, and the Esculus of Pliny. In the places where these trees grow naturally, the acorns are ground into flour, and made into bread in times of scarcity.

The Spanish Oak will grow to be as large a tree as our common oak, and is no way inferior to it in stateliness and grandeur; for the branches all around extend very far, producing a delightful shade, when the trees are in leaf. Though the bark of these branches is of a whitish colour, they are nevertheless marked with brownish spots. The leaves are of an oblong-oval figure, but they are seldom longer than three inches, and are about two inches broad. They are smooth, and have their edges deeply serrated. These serratures are acute, and they chiefly turn backwards. Their upper

surface is of a fine light green colour, and their under part is of a hoary cast; and each branch is plentifully ornamented with these beautiful leaves, all over the tree. The cups are very peculiar, for they are extremely large, and composed of several great rough black scales, that lap over one another like those of a fish: they almost cover the acorn. The acorns are pretty large, narrow at the bottom, but broader above, and have their tops flat. The Greeks call the acorns velani, and the tree itself Velanida. The acorns are used in dyeing.

The Austrian Oak, or the Turkey Oak, as it is more frequently called, is a native of the south of Europe, introduced into this country in 1735. It is distinguished by oblong, pointed, and frequently lyrate leaves, jagged, and a little hoary on the under side. The acorns are small, and have rough, prickly cups. The tree grows forty or fifty feet high; some authors say, that it was from an oak of this species, grown in Devonshire, that Mr Lucombe took the seed which produced the oak known by his name.

In the sixty-second volume of the Philosophical Transactions, a particular account is given of this oak. Mr Lucombe, a gentleman of Devonshire, having, about the year 1765, sown a parcel of acorns, gathered from a tree of his own growth, and observing that one of the seedling plants preserved its

leaves through the winter, he paid particular attention to it, and propagated some thousands from it by grafting. Its being an evergreen is not the only peculiarity of this variety: it has a somewhat more upright tendency, and seems to be of a quicker growth than oaks in general. We have also another variety of the Quercus cerris, called the Fulham Oak. But a still more curious variety has recently been introduced into the Edinburgh Experimental Garden by Mr Neil, the secretary to the Caledonian Horticultural Society, and the ingenious author of the Horticultural Tour. "About sixteen years ago," says he in a letter to us now received, "I observed a weeping oak in the Amsterdam Botanic Garden, and I suggested to Mr Pfister, the curator, to plant some stocks around it, and to inarch the spare branches on the stocks. He engaged to do so; adding, that he had promised a plant to the Jardin des Plantes at Paris; but that, if he succeeded with several, we should have one. Several years afterwards, I requested a friend, (Mr John Mitchell of Leith,) who was going to Amsterdam, to call at the garden; he did so, and received from Mr Pfister the plant now in the Experimental Garden, which, by unremitting care, he conveyed to us uninjured. species is the Turkey oak, or Quercus cerris. The Fulham and the Lucombe oaks are varieties of this; besides which, I have seen the dentated, the narrow-leaved, and the roughleaved varieties, so shat ours will fall to be variety six or seven, (the others being marked A, B, &c.) thus, Quercus cerris, var. 7, Pendula."

The

The Striped-leaved Oaks, both of the golden and silver colours, are usually propagated by inarching into the common oak; but it is best increased by grafting.

The Cork Tree has two varieties,-the broad-leaved cork tree, and the narrow-leaved cork tree. The broad-leaved cork tree is a timber tree of Portugal and Spain, and other southern parts of Europe, where it grows naturally. The fungous bark of this tree produces the true cork. The bark is thus rough and spongy on the trunk and main branches, but on the young shoots it is smooth and gray, and that on the youngest is white and downy. The leaves are of an oval figure, with sawed edges. Their upper surface is smooth, and of a strong green colour, and their under surface is downy. They grow alternately on the branches, on very rough, though strong footstalks; and, indeed, they differ very little from many forms of the ilex. The acorns of the cork tree are longish, smooth, and brown when ripe, and of the size and shape of some of our common acorns, to which they

are so much alike, as not to be distinguishable when mixed together.

The Narrow-leaved Cork Tree is a variety only of the common and most general sort. As its name imports, it has narrower and smaller leaves. There is a very fine cork tree

in the botanical gardens at Chelsea.

The

The best cork of commerce is taken from the oldest trees, the bark of the young trees being too porous for use. They are, nevertheless, barked before they are twenty years old; and this first barking is necessary to make way for the succession of a better, it being observable, that after every stripping, the bark increases in value. The first crop is thin, hard, full of fissures, and consequently of little value. cork is the bark which the tree pushes outwards, as is common to all trees; but in the cork tree, the outer bark is thicker and larger, and in greater quantity, and more easily removed. When removed, the liber, or inner bark, appears below it, and from this the cork is reproduced in the course of a few years. The trees are generally peeled over in ten years. The operation is performed by means of an instrument constructed for the purpose. This is an axe, with a handle terminating in a wedge. The bark is cleft longitudinally, at certain intervals, down to the crown of the root; a circular incision is then made from each extremity of the longitudinal cuts; the bark is beaten to detach it from the liber, and it is lifted up by introducing the wedged handle, taking care to leave enough of the inner laminæ upon the wood, without which precaution the tree would certainly die. The bark is then divided into convenient lengths, flattened, and slightly charred, to contract the pores. This operation is so far from injuring the trees, that it is even necessary, and contributes to their health; for without it they thrive but slowly; nay, in a few years they begin to decay, and in less than a century, die of age; whereas those trees which have been regularly peeled, will live upwards of two hundred years. This may appear strange, but we can vouch for it that it is not without a parallel, for we have ourselves succeeded in very much renovating old sycamore trees, by scraping off the old dry scaly bark, which the trees themselves were anxiously, but ineffectually, attempting to rid themselves of. "Wonderful," says Hanbury, "is the wisdom and goodness of Almighty God, and calls for our profoundest admiration, that he should not only provide for us, his creatures, such variety of things for use, but cause, as in this instance, what would be death to one tree, to be refreshment to another, for the supply of our necessaries; and in the

formation of this tree, not only causing the cork to grow, but providing also an interior bark sufficient to nourish the tree, and even in a manner exhilarate it, as the loaded wool is shorn from the fleecy kind. We should be always exercised in these considerations, and this will inspire us with acts of gratitude and obedience."

We cannot part with the cork tree, as connected with forest scenery, without giving way to those emotions which naturally arise within us at its very name, associated as it is in our minds with our early recollections of those picturesque localities rendered classical by Cervantes. It is impossible to hear it mentioned without an immediate mental recurrence to the adventures of the renowned hero of La Mancha, with some of that delight with which his puissant deeds first filled our youthful minds. Nor can we forget that any history which records the recent deeds of British valour in the Spanish Peninsula, must frequently notice those groves of cork trees, to clear which of a determined enemy many a rifle shot was fired, and under whose shade many a brave soldier reposed, night after night, with nothing but their foliage for a shelter.

To these evergreen species, the Quercus virens, or Lace Oak, ought to be added; for although abounding chiefly in the northern states of North America, it was cultivated by Millar so long ago as 1739. We think this tree would even succeed in Scotland, because the sea-breeze is favourable, if not indispensable, to its full growth; for it skirts the sea-shore, and grows in the very sands around the bays, and creeks, and islands, from Norfolk, in Lower Virginia, to the mouth of the Mississippi, and it is seldom or never seen farther than fifteen or twenty miles up the country. Its ordinary height is forty or forty-five feet. The general diameter is about one or perhaps two feet; but Michaux mentions one of twenty-four feet in circumference, which had a large tufted head, borne upon a trunk of eighteen or twenty feet high. The Lace Oak branches out into numerous boughs, which make excellent braces for ship-building, for which purpose it is in great request in America.

Mr Stuart, in his most interesting work recently published, called Three Years in North America, thus speaks of this tree, whilst describing his journey from Georgetown to Charleston: "On this day's journey I first saw, and in great numbers, the most valuable of the American trees, the Quercus virens, the most durable of oaks. It flourishes most on lands adjacent to salt water. It is almost as heavy as Lignum vitæ. Its trunk is generally not long, but its

crooked branches frequently spread over more than a quarter of an acre of ground. The wood of this tree is almost incorruptible. It was on account of the abundance of this tree in Florida, fit for building ships of war, that the Americans shewed the great anxiety, which was at last gratified in 1819, to add Florida to their extensive territories, and which had led the general government, since its acquirement, to lay out very large sums in the preservation and establishment of live oak plantations in Florida. Indeed, I have heard of the formation of plantations of trees, upon a great scale, nowhere in North America, but in Florida. But this need not occasion surprise, for there is no object which the people of the United States are so anxious to attain as the possession of a powerful navy."

The Chermes, or Kermes Oak, is a low growing tree, and a fine evergreen. Its height is not more than twenty feet. It has much the appearance of the Ilex, though it is certainly a distinct species. The leaves are smooth and oval, of a thickish consistence, and larger than most sorts of the Ilex. Their verge is indented, and many of them are possessed of small spines; and they stand on short footstalks. The acorns are small. This tree was introduced upwards of a century ago into the Edinburgh garden, by Sutherland, the eminent superintendent. The tree is a native of Spain, the southern provinces of France, and the Mediterranean coasts of Africa. Its name of Quercus coccifera is obtained from the circumstance of its nourishing large quantities of a small insect, the Coccus ilicis, or, as some authors have it, the chermes, or kermes. This, when gathered, immersed in a diluted acid, and then dried, forms the article of commerce called kermes. The declivities of the Sierra Morena are covered with the kermes oak; and many of the inhabitants of the province of Murcia have no other mode of living than that of gathering the kermes. Latreille has united this insect to the cochineal family, which it resembles, not only in its form, but in producing a scarlet dye. Till the discovery of the cochineal insect upon certain species of the Cactus in South America, the kermes was the only substance used in dyeing scarlet, after the period of the disuse and loss of the Murex and Buccinum,the shell fish that produced the Tyrian purple of the Romans. The people of Barbary employ the kermes for dyeing the scarlet caps used by the natives in the Levant, and they prefer that of Spain to their own produce, perhaps because the gathering and drying of the insect is better understood in Spain. In England, and in other countries

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