Page:TheTreesOfGreatBritainAndIreland vol03B.djvu/186

554 ovate, unequal and usually cordate at the base, rounded at the apex, variable in pubescence, dark-green above, light- green beneath; nerves usually four pairs ; margin with three or four pairs of shallow lobes, which are minutely and irregularly dentate, the teeth being rounded or acute; petiole % to 1 inch, pubescent. Male flowers solitary; calyx five-partite; stamens ten, as long as the calyx. Fruit: involucre four-partite, each lobe with three to four transverse reddish scales ; nuts three, the central one two-winged, the lateral pair three-winged.

Two distinct forms occur :—

1. Var. sublobata, DC.1—Petiole and upper surface of the leaf glabrescent; lower surface glabrous except on the nerves, which are clothed with long appressed hairs.

2, Var. uliginosa, DC.1—Leaves pubescent on both surfaces with minute erect hairs.

This species was introduced in 1843, as mentioned in our account of WV. betulordes, but it is doubtful if any of the original plants are still living. The only specimen which we have discovered is a bushy tree, about 15 feet high, which is growing alongside a fine tree of V. Je¢uloides at Hafodunos, Denbighshire. Colonel Sandbach believes it to be about thirty years old.

Plants raised from seed, collected by Elwes in Chile in 1902, are now in cultiva- tion at Kew,” in a peat-bed, and have attained about 6 feet in height. They are vigorous in growth, and have passed through the severe frosts of 1906-1907 without injury, and look as if they might grow to be trees of considerable size.

In extra-tropical South America, the beeches are the dominant trees, extending from a point on the west coast of Chile about lat. 33°, southward to Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, and crossing the Andes into Argentina. The best account of the Chilean beeches is given by Reiche,’ from whom, supplemented by my own observations in 1901–1902, I take the following particulars.

The most northerly species is N. obliqua, which extends on the coast up to about lat. 33°, but in the extreme north does not form forest except in the interior valleys. About lat. 35° it is the principal tree in the forest which formerly clothed the lower slopes of the Andes, but which is now fast vanishing before the attacks of man. The tree is called Roble Pellin by the Spaniards, and grows to a large size with a tall straight trunk, attaining a height of 120 feet or more, and a girth of 20 to 30 feet. In the forest country, which commences south of the Maule River, it is mixed with N. Dombeyi; and these two species form the principal timber supplies of Chile, and are largely cut for house-building, railway sleepers, and other purposes. Some cargoes of this timber have lately been imported into England, under the name of Chilean Oak ; and by the courtesy of the Great Western Railway Company, I have received one of these sleepers, which has a dense reddish wood, not at all resembling

1 Prod. xvi. 2, 120 (1864). De Candolle’s var. bicernata is Nothofagus pumilio.

2 Cf. Kew Bull, 1906, p. 381.

3 Beitrage Kenntniss Chilen. Buchen (Valparaiso, 1897).