1976

arboretum and fruticetum.

PART III

France; Roque’s Hist, des Champ. ; &c.) Rhizo-pdgon albus Fr., Berk. Eng. FI., v. part 11. p. 229.syn. Tuber album Bull., t. 40-1., Sow., t. 310., andour Jig. 1815.; T. albidum Ccesalp. ; Lycoperdongibbosum Dicks. Crypt., ii. p. 26.; Truffle blanche,Fr. ; the White Truffle; is also eaten. It is rare bothin France and England ; but is sometimes found, inboth countries, in sandy woods, and is common inGermany. It has occurred in the Botanic Garden

at Glasgow.

The price of morels, dry, in Covent Garden market, varies from 165. a poundto 205.; and in Paris the fresh morels are from 50 to 60 cents the pottle.Truffles, when dry, are about 145. a pound in Covent Garden market; andfresh English truffles are from 35. 6d. to 5s . a pound. Fresh truffles vary inParis, according to their quality, from 50 cents to 3 francs per pound.

Lichens . We are informed by W. Borrer, Esq., thtthe only lichens known to him,as peculiar to the beech,are, Opegrapha venosa and Parmelia speciosa. (). ve-nosa Eng. Bot.y t. 2454., and our fig. 1816., is foundon the trunks of beech trees in the New Forest,

Hampshire. Sir J. E. Smith describes the ramifica-tions of this lichen as being “ deeply sunk into thecrust, but convex above, and intensely black, with ob-tuse terminations.” (See Eng. Fl. t v. pi. 1. p. 148.)

The name of Opegrapha alludes to the supposed resemblance of the lichenswhich compose this genus to Hebrew characters inscribed on the wood.P. speciosa Ach . Syn. 9 p. 221., Z/ichen speciosus Wulf. Eng. Bot.y 1979.,the elegant garland parmelia, is usually found on rocks; but Mr. Borrerinforms us that it is also found on the beech. “ The fructification of thislichen has not been found in Great Britain; but it is described from specimensgathered in North America.” (Eng. Fl. t v. pi. 1. p. 202.) Dr. Taylor, how-ever, finds it “ not very rare near Dunkerron, county of Kerry.” ( FI. Hib.ypt. ii. p. 149.) ; and a single specimen has occurred in St. Leonard’s Forest,Sussex.

Statistics. Recorded Trees. The Great Beech, in Windsor Forest, of which an engraving is givenby Strutt in his Sylva Britannica , and of which our jig. 1907. is a copy, reduced to a scale of 1 in. to50 ft., is evidently of very great antiquity. It is supposed to have existed before the Norman Con-quest; and it is mentioned by Cambden as “ standing on a high hill (Sunning Hill), and overlookinga vale lying out far and wide; garnished with corn fields, flourishing with meadows, decked withgroves on either side, and watered with the Thames.” According to Jesse, the trunk of this treemeasures, at 6 ft from the ground, 36 ft. round. “ It is now,” he says,

** protected from injury, and Nature seems to be doing her best to-wards repairing the damage which its exposure to the attacks of manand boast had produced. It must once have been almost hollow;but the vacuity (as shown in Jig. 1908.), has now been nearly filledup. One might almost fancy that liquid wood, which had afterwardshardened, had been poured into the tree. The twistings and dis-tortions of this huge substance have a curious and striking effect;and one might almost imagine them to have been produced by aconvulsive throe of nature. (See Jig. 1907. in p. 1977., on a largerscale, copied from Jesse's Gleanings.) There is no bark on this .extra-neous substance; but the surface is smooth, hard, and without anyappearance of decay.” ( Jesse's Gleanings in Nat. Hist., 2d.s.,p. 112.) A beech at Bicton, in Devonshire, blown down in 1806, hada trunk which measured 29 ft. in circumference, and a head whichwas 103ft. in diameter. The Burnham Beeches stand in a tract ofwoodland above 4 miles from Stoke Pogis, in Buckinghamshire,which is celebrated as the scene of Gray’s poetic musings. “Both vale and hill,” says Gray,“ are covered with most venerable beechesand in his Elegy he particularly mentions “ the nod-ding beech,that wreathes its old fantastic roots so high.” In Scotland, a very large beech stood atNew-battle Abbey, in Mid-Lothian. It was measured by Dr. Walker, in 1789 ; when the trunk was foundto be 17 ft. in circumference, and the diameter of the head 89 ft. It contained upwards of 1000 ft.of timber. It was blown down by a gale of wind about 1809. Dr. Walker thinks it must havebeen planted between 1540 and 1560. A beech tree at Preston Hall, Mid-Lothian, at 1 ft. from theground, measured 17 ft. 3 in. in circumference; and at 4 ft., 14 ft. 6 in. A beech at Taymouth,seemingly coeval with that at Newbattle Abbey, was blown down when its trunk was above 16 ft.round. A number of other fine beech trees, which existed in Scotland in the time of Dr. Walker,are noticed in his Essays on Natural History , to which Mr. Sang and Sir T. Dick Lauder have addedseveral other remarkable examples. In Ireland, there are a number of large beech trees, the dimen-sions of which have been recorded by Hayes. At Shelton Abbey, near Arklow, there are 7 beechtrees, the trunks of which measure from 13 ft, 9 in. to 15 ft. in circumference; and there are upwards

1907