CHAP. CV.

coryla'ceje. que'rcus.

1913

drawings of the two trees were taken nearly a month afterwards, when theyhad exactly the appearance shown in our last Volume. In order that thevariety may be kept distinct by propagators, we have given it a name amongthe others, as below.

I Q. S. 2 latifolium, 5uber latifolium, &c., Bank. Pin., 424, Du Ham. Arb.2. p. 291. t. 80., has the leaves rather broader than the species, andeither serrated or entire. The tree at Muswell Hill, between 30 ft.and 40 ft. high, figured in our last Volume, we may suppose to be ofthis entire-leaved subvariety.

J Q. S. 3 angustifolium, .Suber angustifolium Bauh. Pin., 424., Du Ham.Arb., 2. p.29J. t. 81.—The portrait in our last Volume of a tree inthe Fulham Nursery, 27 ft. high, and of which there is a botanicalspecimen given in Watson’s Dend. Brit., t.89., and our fig. 1798.,may be considered as belonging to this variety.

t Q. S. 4 dentatum, the Q. Pseudo-iSuber of Muswell Hill, has theleaves large, and variously dentate, as in fig. 1797. The tree ofthis variety at Muswell Hill, figured in our last Volume, is between50 ft. and 60 ft. high.

Description, fyc. The cork tree bears a general resemblance to the broad-leaved kinds of Q. /'lex; of which species some authors consider it only avariety : but, when full grown, it forms a much handsomer tree; and its barkalone seems to justify its beingmade a species. It would appear

Site

to be rather more tender than theilex; since the severe winter of1709 killed to the ground the

greater part of the cork trees of 5Provence and Languedoc; and the |;frost of 1739-40, one of the original ||trees in the Chelsea Botanic'Gar-den. Like the ilex, it varies ex- Qwceedingly in the magnitude, form, HM

and margins of its leaves, and alsoin the size of its fruit. The nut,

according to Bose, is more sweet gjSP’

than that of the ilex, and may be fig ntH ^

eaten as human food in cases of ' /

necessity. Swine, he says, are exceedingly greedy of these acorns, and getrapidly fat on them, producing a firm and very savoury lard. The Spaniardseat the acorns roasted, in the same manner as they do those of Q. gramuntia,and as we do chestnuts. The outer bark, the greatthickness and elasticity of which is owing to anextraordinary developement of the cellular tissue,forms the cork; which, after the tree is full grown,cracks and separates from it, of its own accord.

The inner bark remains attached to the tree, and,when removed in its young state, is only fit for tan-ning. Both outer and inner bark abound in tannin ; A

and the former contains a peculiar principle calledsuberine, and an acid called the suberic. The tree

is found wild in dry hilly places in the south of

France, in Italy, in great part of Spain, and in the 'llnorth of Africa. In Spain, according to Captain I

S. E. Cook, it is most abundant in Catalonia and

Valencia. The wood of the cork tree, which weighs 84 lb. per cubic foot, isused for the same purposes as that of Q. I' lex; but it is never found of suffi-cient size to be of much consequence. By far the most important product,however, which this tree yields, is its outer bark. This, which is the cork of