pubescence. Leaves (Plate 201, Fig. 11) about 3 inches long by 13⁄4 inch wide, ovate, shortly acuminate at the apex, unequal and rounded at the base; margin sharply bi-serrate and ciliate; covered above and below with appressed pubescence, spreading more or less over the whole surface, and not confined to the midrib and nerves, as in Carpinus Betulus, and with minute axil tufts on the lower surface; nerves twelve to fifteen pairs; petiole 1⁄4 to 3⁄8 inch long, appressed pubescent; stipules persistent during summer. Nutlet ovoid, 1⁄6 inch long, crowned by a tuft of hairs; calyx-limb obsolete.
In winter the twigs are slender, zigzag, more or less pubescent. No true terminal bud is formed, the apex of the branchlet falling off in summer and leaving a minute circular scar at the side of the uppermost axillary bud. Buds small, 3⁄16 inch long, ovoid, viscid, set obliquely on prominent leaf-cushions; scales 6 to 9, imbricated, greenish with a dark brown margin, more or less pubescent. Leaf-scar semicircular, with two bundle-dots above and one group of three smaller dots below.
Ostrya carpinifolia reaches its most westerly point in the extreme south-eastern corner of France, where it occupies a few isolated stations in the Basses-Alpes and Alpes-Maritimes Departments. In the forest of Miolans,[1] in the Basses-Alpes, which is mainly composed of Pinus sylvestris, it is found on a northern slope, over an area of about 400 acres, occurring chiefly as undergrowth and ascending to about 2700 feet altitude. In the Alpes-Maritimes it descends in some places to nearly sealevel. It extends eastward through Southern Switzerland, the Tyrol (where,[2] near Botzen, it ascends to 3500 feet altitude), Carinthia, and Lower Styria to Southern Hungary, and spreads southwards through Carniola, Croatia, and the Balkan States to Greece, growing usually in rocky situations, more commonly on limestone than on other formations. It is common throughout Italy and Sicily in the oak and chestnut regions, ascending to 3800 feet elevation; and forms woods of considerable extent around Lake Como, especially above Lecco, on the shores of Lake Lugano, and at Gaudria and Salvatore.[2] It occurs as a rare tree in Corsica and Sardinia. It is also met with in Asia Minor and in the Lebanon. It attains about a hundred years of age; and according to Pardé[3] produces coppice shoots like the hornbeam. (A.H.)
Cultivation
It was introduced into cultivation in England some time before 1724, as it is mentioned in Furber's Nursery Catalogue published in that year. Though an ornamental tree which attains a good size and is perfectly hardy, it has always been very rare in this country. According to Mouillefert[4] its growth is about equal to that of the Hornbeam. I have raised plants from French seed which grow faster on my soil than those of the hornbeam, and seem at least as hardy, as they were
- ↑ Fliche, Bull. Soc. Bot. France, xlvi. 8 (1899). Cf. also 2d¢d. xxxv. 160 (1888).
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Christ, Flore de la Suisse, 238 (1907). In the same work, p. 507, it is stated that this species has been found in the fossil state in miocene beds at Ardeche; and another species, probably a mere variety, has been found in the same strata at Var.
- ↑ Arb. Nat. des Barres, 281 (1906).
- ↑ Principales Essences Forestières, 148, note (1903). At Grignon in France, planted together in the arboretum, on calcareous soil with a chalky subsoil, at thirty years old the Hornbeam is 11 metres high by 70 centimetres in girth at 1 metre above the ground; and the Ostrya 111⁄2 metres by 73 centimetres in girth. It bore here without injury the severe winter of 1879.
