Thou rather with thy sharp and sulph’rous bolt
Splitt’st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak,
Than the soft myrtle.”—Shakespeare.
Selby again, in his “History of Forest Trees,” a work which should be in the hands of all lovers of the beautiful natural objects of which it treats, describes the finding of some bog oaks, which would almost connect the present race with a fossilized past:—
At the Linden, the seat of C. W. Bigge, Esq., the trunk of a magnificent oak was extracted from a peat moss that fills a small basin or hollow, evidently produced by the stagnation of a stream, which now passes through it, and which, at some distant period, had been dammed back by the fall of the trees upon its margins. This oak was covered by a layer of the peat to the depth of about three feet, and was discovered by probing the moss. The trunk, with a small portion of one of the larger limbs, was with great labour and difficulty dragged from its miry bed. The contents of the portion recovered contained 545 cubic feet, although the whole of the sap-wood had perished. The timber was perfectly sound, and the tree, by whatever accident it had been overthrown, had fallen in the vigour of its growth. When sawn up, the interior planks were found of a deep rich brown colour; those nearer the exterior darker, or approaching to black. A variety of elegant furniture has been made from the wood; but it has been found necessary, for fine cabinet-work, to have it cut into veneers, for, when worked in bulk, it is apt to crack and become warped. Remains of other huge oaks have also been met with on the banks of the Tyne, the Alne, and other rivers, as well as in various bogs and morasses; and we mention these instances to show that in a district where, at the present day, nothing but recently-planted oak or dwarfish timber from stock-shoots exists, in former times the monarch of the forest grew luxuriantly, and attained a splendid development; and also as an inducement to the planter not to neglect the liberal insertion of this national tree wherever soil and situation are found congenial to its growth. In other parts of England, the oak still grows in all its native magnificence of form and dimensions, and the remains of those ancient forests, which are chronicled by our earliest writers, and which, in the time of our Saxon ancestors, spread over the greater portion of the country, are still to be traced in the venerable but living relics of enormous oaks, many of which are supposed to number more than a thousand years.
Not to neglect to plant the national tree! We hope indeed that there is no possessor of broad acres who does not esteem it a duty, regardless of profit, to provide for a succession of forest kings, if only to beautify the face of the country, and to leave the people of the present, some grand living object to connect them with the history of the past. In fact, planting of the “British oak” has not only been considered a duty, but followed out with the keenest pleasure by the country gentleman. In so doing, the question has scarcely until lately occurred, is the British oak always the same? or, are there not different species, or at least varieties of the genus quercus which have been confounded by the planter? To this question we now propose to address our inquiries.
On referring to different authors, we shall find mention of the following names as applied to the British oak:—
1. Quercus robur, Linn.
2. „ sessiliflora, Salisbury.
3. „ intermedia, Don.
This method of nomenclature would, however, be only tenable on the supposition that we considered the trees so named specifically distinct; but as we incline to believe them to be only varieties—though highly important as such—we intend to treat of them as follows:—
1st. Quercus Robur PEDUNCULATA.
2nd. „ „ SESSILIFLORA.
3rd. „ „ INTERMEDIA.
Plate II.