Sussex the fruit is called chequers. It is found in woods, copses, and hedgerows, usually on loam or clay, but does not seem to grow on sandy soils. It attains its greatest size in the Midland counties, where it reaches a height of from 50 to 70 feet. It never seems to be gregarious, and though it reproduces itself by seed or suckers, yet being usually looked on as underwood and not allowed to grow up to its full size, does not attract notice, and is unknown except to the most observant woodmen, even in districts where it occurs. In the vale of Gloucester, on the Earl of Ducie's property, there are probably thirty or forty trees of it scattered over a considerable area. The tallest of these, though not the thickest, is in Daniel's Wood, and is figured (Plate 47). This tree was 62 feet by 5 feet 1 inch in 1904, and is still growing vigorously among other trees and underwood. Not far off is another which may grow to as fine a tree.
In the Cotswold Hills the tree is very rare. I only know a single decaying specimen of moderate size in Chedworth Wood, close to the road leading from Withington to Chedworth Downs.
On Ashampstead Common, in Berks, I found one about 65 feet high and 8 feet in girth, crowded among other trees, which had produced a few suckers. At Rickmansworth Park, Herts, are two fine trees growing together by a pond, which are probably planted (Plate 48), and which Henry measured in 1904, when they were 65 feet by 8 feet 3 inches, and 63 feet by 9 feet 1 inch respectively. The largest specimen known to me is at Walcot, Shropshire, growing on a bank in good soil with a wych elm crowding it on one side, but probably planted. It measures as nearly as I could estimate about 80 feet high, and is no less than 8 feet 9 inches in girth.
At Cobham Hall, Kent, a tree planted beside a pond measured 55 feet high by 4½ feet in 1906.
In the woods in Worcestershire, as I am informed by Mr. Woodward, it is not uncommon, but is not looked upon as of any value. There is a tree at Arley 5 feet 1 inch in girth. In Wych wood Forest, Oxon, now nearly all destroyed, I am informed by Mr. R. Claridge Druce, of Oxford, the tree was formerly common enough for its fruit to be collected and sold in Witney market under the name of service berries.
In Cornbury Park, and in the remains of the forest outside it, there are at least six good-sized trees surviving. Of these the largest, just outside the park wall on the south side, is 65 to 70 feet high by 6 feet 6 inches in girth, a well-shaped, vigorous tree, which on 16th October 1905 was covered with unripe fruit. Another, also outside the park, is about 50 feet by 6 feet 10 inches, with a fine clean bole 12 to 14 feet long. I saw no suckers or seedlings near these trees.
In the woods and coppices north and north-east of London, and in Herts, the tree is not unfrequent on clay soil, and Pryor[1] gives several localities for it.
In Epping Forest, Mr. E.N. Buxton tells me that he does not know of more than thirty trees on an area of 3000 acres, growing on heavy gravelly clay. The largest in his grounds is 40 to 50 feet high.
- ↑ Flora of Hertfordshire, 154 (1887).
