the oak-tree; a genus of the polyandria order, belonging to the monoecia clas of plants.

Species. 1. The robur, or common English oak, grows from about 60 or 70 to 100 feet high, with a prodigious large trunk, and monstrous spreading head; oblong leaves, broadest towards the top, the edges acutely sinuated, having the angles obtuse. There is a variety, having the leaves finely striped with white. This species grows in great abundance all over England in woods, forests, and hedge-rows; is naturally of an amazing large growth; there being accounts of some above 100 feet stature, with wonderful large trunks and spreading heads; and is supposed to continue its growth many centuries.

2. The primus, or chestnut-leaved American oak, grows 50 or 60 feet high; having large oblong-oval smooth leaves pointed both ways, the edges finuated-ferrated, with the sinuses uniformly round.

3. The phellos, or willow-leaved American oak, grows 40 or 50 high, having long narrow smooth entire leaves like those of the willow. There is a variety called the dwarf willow-leaved oak.

4. The alba, or white Virginian oak, grows 30 or 40 feet high, having a whitish bark, with long obliquely-pinnatifid light-green leaves, the sinuses and angles obtuse.

5. The nigra, or black Virginian oak, grows 30 or 40 feet high, having a dark-coloured bark, large wedge-shaped slightly-trilobated leaves.

6. The rubra, or red Virginian oak, grows about 60 feet high, having a dark-greyish bark, long obtusely sinuated leaves, with the sinuses terminated by brittle points, and have sometimes red spotted veins, but generally dying in autumn to a reddish colour, remaining on the trees late in the season.

7. The esculus of Pliny, or cut-leaved Italian oak, grows about 30 feet high, having a purplish bark, oblong deeply-sinuated smooth leaves, and long slender clove-fitting acorns in very large cups.

8. Ægilops, or large prickly-cupped Spanish oak, grows 70 or 80 feet high or more, with a very large trunk and widely-spreading head, having a whitish bark, large oblong-oval deeply-ferrated smooth leaves, the serratures bowed backward, and large acorns placed in singularly large prickly cups. This is a noble species, almost equal in growth to our common English oak.

9. Cerris, or smaller prickly-cupped Spanish oak, grows 30 or 40 feet high, and has oblong lyre-shaped pinnatifid tranversely-jagged leaves, downy underneath, and small acorns placed in prickly cups.

10. The ilex, or common evergreen oak, grows 40 or 50 feet high, having a smooth bark, oval and oblong undivided ferrated petiolated leaves, downy and whitish underneath. The varieties are, broad-leaved, narrow-leaved, and sometimes both sorts and other different shaped leaves on the same tree, also sometimes with sawed and prickly leaves.

11. The gramuntia, or Montpelier holly-leaved evergreen oak, grows 40 or 50 feet high; and has oblong-oval, close-fitting finuated spinous leaves, downy underneath, bearing a resemblance to the leaves of holly.

12. The suber, or cork-tree, grows 30 or 40 feet high, having a thick rough fungous cleft bark, and oblong-oval undivided ferrated leaves, downy underneath. This species furnishes that useful material cork; it being the bark of the tree, which becoming of a think fungous nature, under which, at the same time, is formed a new bark, and the old being detached for use, the tree still lives, and the succeeding young bark becomes also of the same thick spongy nature in six or seven years, fit for barking, having likewise another fresh bark forming under it, becoming cork like the others in the like period of time; and in this manner these trees wonderfully furnish the cork for our use, and of which is made the corks for bottles, bungs for barrels, and numerous other useful articles. The tree grows in great plenty in Spain and Portugal, and from which countries we receive the cork.

13. The coccifera, scarlet or kermes oak, grows but 14 or 15 feet high, branching all the way, and of bushy growth; with large oval undivided indented spinous leaves; and producing small glandular excrescences, called kermes or scarlet grain, used by the dyers. The small scarlet glands found on this tree, is the effect of certain insects depositing their eggs betwixt the bark of the branches and leaves, causes an extravasation of the sap, and forms the excrescence or substance in question, which being dried is the kermes or scarlet pastel.

14. The Molucca, Moluccan oak, commonly called American live oak, grows about 40 feet high, having oval spear-shaped smooth entire leaves, and small oblong eatable acorns.

All the above 14 species of quercus produce flowers annually in the spring; about April or May, of a yellowish colour, but make no ornamental appearance, and are males and females separated in the same tree; the males being in loose amentums, and the females fitting close to the buds in thick leathery hemispherical calices, succeeded by the fruit or acorns, which are oval nuts fixed by their base into rough permanent cups, and mostly fit quite close, and some on short footstalks, ripening in autumn, which in the common English oak is in great abundance, and often in tolerable plenty on some of the other sorts; those of all the kinds serve serve for propagating their respective species; they are also excellent food for swine and deer, the common oak in particular.

**Ufus**, &c. Oak-trees, of all the above sorts, may be employed in gardening to diversify large ornamental plantations in out grounds, and in forming clumps in spacious lawns, parks, and other extensive opens; the evergreen kinds in particular have great merit for all ornamental purposes in gardens. But all the larger growing kinds, both deciduous and evergreens, demand esteem principally as first-rate forest-trees for their timber. The English oak, however, claims precedence as a timber-tree, for its prodigious height and bulk, and superior worth of its wood. Every possessor of considerable estates ought therefore to be particularly assiduous in raising woods of them, which is effected by sowing the acorns either in a nursery and the plants transplanted where they are to remain, or sowed at once in the places where they are always to stand. All the sorts will prosper in any middling soil and open situation, though in a loamy soil they are generally more prosperous; however, there are but few soils in which oaks will not grow; they will even thrive tolerably in gravelly, sandy, and clayey land, as may be observed in many parts of this country of the common oak.

The propagation of the striped-leaved varieties of the common oak, and any particular variety of the other species, must be effected by grafting, as they will not continue the same from seed; the grafting may be performed upon any kind of oakling-rocks raised from the acorns, and train them for standards like the others.

The oak is remarkable for its slowness of growth, bulk, and longevity. It has been remarked that the trunk has attained to the size only of 14 inches in diameter, and of some to 20, in the space of four-score years. As to bulk, we have an account of an oak belonging to Lord Powis, growing in Broomfield wood, near Ludlow in Shropshire, in the year 1764, the trunk of which measured 68 feet in girth, 23 in length, and which, reckoning 90 feet for the larger branches, contained in the whole 155 feet of timber round measure, or 29 loads and five feet, at 50 feet to a load. And, with respect to longevity, Linnæus gives account of an oak 260 years old; but we have had some traditions of some in England (how far to be depended upon we know not) that have attained to more than double that age. Besides the grand purposes to which the timber is applied in navigation and architecture, and the bark in tanning of leather, there are other uses of less consequence, to which the different parts of this tree have been referred. The Highlanders use the bark to dye their yarn of a brown colour, or, mixed with copperas, of a black colour. They call the oak the king of all the trees in the forest; and the herdsman would think himself and his flock unfortunate if he had not a flax of it. The saw-dust from the timber, and even the leaves of the tree, have been found capable of tanning, though much inferior to the bark for that purpose. The bark, also, after being used for tanning, are employed in gardening for making bark-beds, forming the most eligible kind of hot-beds for the culture of the pine-apple and all other tender exotics of the hot-house temperature. So great is the altrigency of the bark, that in a larger dose, like the Peruvian kind, it has been known to cure the ague. The expressed juice of the galls or oak-apples (excrements occasioned by a small insect called cynips) mixed with vitriol and gum-arabic, will make ink. The leaves of the oak are very subject to be covered with a sweet viscid juice called honey-dew, which bees and other insects are very fond of. The acorns are a good food to fattened swine and turkeys; and, after the severe winter of the year 1709, the poor people in France were miserably constrained to eat them themselves. There are, however, acorns produced from another species of oak, which are eaten to this day in Spain and Greece, with as much pleasure as chestnuts, without the dreadful compulsion of hunger.