1956

ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM.

PART III.

tricts of England, especially on chalky hills. Some, as we have seen (p. 21.),are disposed to consider the tree as not aboriginal; but with this suppositionwe cannot agree. It abounds on the great ridge of chalk hills which passesfrom Dorsetshire through Wiltshire, Hampshire, Surrey, Sussex, and Kent ;branching out into Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, and Hertfordshire; and it isalso found on the Stroudwater and Cotswold Hills in Gloucestershire, andon the bleak banks of the Wye in Herefordshire and Monmouthshire. Itis particularly abundant in Buckinghamshire, where it forms extensive forests,of great magnificence and beauty. It is seldom found mixed with other trees ;its own dense head suffocating most other species, even when they are coevalwith it in point of age. Nothing, says South, will grow under the beech butthe holly and the truffle. It is rarely found in soil that is not more or lesscalcareous; and it most commonly abounds on chalk. In some parts ofHertfordshire, where the soil is a calcareous clay full of flints, the beechattains a large size. The tree is not indigenous to Scotland or Ireland.

History. The beech was known to both the Greeks and Romans; thoughsome doubts have arisen as to the names by which it was designated by thesenations. By Theophrastus it was called Oxua, and by Dioscorides Phegos.Theophrastus also describes a tree under the name of Phegos; but he placesit among the oaks; and it is now generally supposed to be the Quercus E' s-culus L. Doubts have also arisen as to whether our beech was the Pagus ofthe Romans, from the assertion of Caesar, in his Commentaries, that he foundno Pagiin Britain (see p. 21.) ; but that the Pagus of Pliny and Virgil was thesame as that of Linnaeus, is thus proved by Fee, in his Flore de Virgil. “ Pliny(lib. xvi. cap. 6.) says, ‘ Fagi glans, nuclei similis, triangula cute includitur.’(The mast of the beech is like a nut, included in a triangular case.) Theepithets applied to this tree by Virgil are all applicable to our beech. It isspreading; — ‘Tityre, tu patulee recubans sub tegmine fagi.’ {Eel. i. 1.)It has dense tufted foliage; and, consequently, its branches afford a shade im-pervious to the rays of the sun : — ‘ Tantum inter densas, umbrosa cacumina,fagos’ {Eel. ii. 3.); and, as it lives nearly as long as the oak, it is wellentitled to the epithet of old : Aut hic ad veteres fagos. {Eel. iii. 12.) It isalso one of the loftiest trees of the European forests:—‘ Caeditur et tiliaante jugo laevis, altaque fagus.’ {Geor. i. 173.) It thus appears that thePagus of Virgil agrees in every respect with the beech tree of the moderns.”{FI. de Virg., p. 54.) The ancients seem to have set considerable value on thebeech mast as an article of food. Pliny speaks of the mast (glandem) of thebeech as being the sweetest of all (dnlcissima omnium) ; and states that, atthe siege of Chios, the besieged lived for some time entirely on beech mast.Vessels made of beech wood were used in the Roman sacrifices; and the nutwas in repute as a medicine. Pliny and Virgil both tell us that the beechwas grafted on the chestnut; a circumstance which has called forth muchdiscussion among commentators. Servius thinks it absurd that a barrenbeech, as he calls it, should be engrafted on a fruitful chestnut; and fanciesthat there is an error in the text. Grimoaldus thinks that the poet means awild sort of chestnut, which might be used as a stock on which to graft thebeech; and Dr. Trapp highly approves of this reading. These, and othercommentators, Martyn observes, proceed on the supposition that chestnutswere esteemed, in Virgil’s time, as much superior to beech mast as they arenow ; the contrary to which, he says, might easily be proved. Pliny men-tions chestnuts as a very inferior kind of fruit, and seems to express surprisethat nature should take such care of the nuts, which he calls “ vilissima,”as to defend them with a prickly husk ; while the mast of the beech was reck-oned a very sweet nut, and was in use both as food and medicine. Plinyfrequently mentions the beech in his Natural History. In one place, he saysthat “ there was a little hill called Corne, in the territory of Tuscuium, notfar from the city of Rome, that was clad and beautified with a grove and tuftsof beech trees, which were as even and round in the head as if they had beencuriously trimmed with garden shears.” He adds ; —“ This grove was, in old