Embowell’d now, and of thy ancient self Possessing nought but the scoop’d rind, that seems A huge throat calling to the clouds for drink, Which it would give in rivulets to thy roots; Thou temptest none, but rather much forbidd’st The feller’s toil, which thou wouldst ill requite. Yet is thy root sincere, sound as a rock: A quarry of stout spurs and knotted fangs, Which, crook’d into a thousand whimsies, clasp The stubborn soil, and hold thee still erect. Thine arms have left thee—winds have rent them off Long since; and rovers of the forest wild With bow and shaft have burnt them. Some have left A splinter’d stump, bleach’d to a snowy white; And some, memorial none where once they grew. Yet life still lingers in thee, and puts forth Proof not contemptible of what she can, Even when death predominates. The spring Finds thee not less alive to her sweet form, Than yonder upstarts of the neighbouring wood, So much thy juniors, who their birth received Half a millennium since the date of thine. The leaves of the common Oak are deeply sinuated, and without footstalks, but those of _Quercus Robur sessiliflora_, another British Oak, are upon short footstalks, though the acorns are sessile. This last species predominated in the oak forest which formerly surrounded London; and many examples are still to be found at Lord Mansfield’s beautiful seat at Hampstead, the name of which, Ken wood, alludes to them, Ken being Saxon for an acorn. The wood of this tree was also used for the roof of Westminster Hall, and many other ancient buildings which till lately were supposed to be of Chestnut. Oak wood may always easily be tested by wetting a knife and then cutting it, when the astringent property in the Oak will turn the knife black, a result that will not take place with Chestnut. There are nearly fifty species of Oaks which may be obtained in the British nurseries; the most remarkable of which are the Cork tree (_Quercus Suber_), the cork being the bark; the Evergreen Oak (_Q. Ilex_); the American Oaks, particularly the scarlet Oaks (_Q. coccinea_ and _Q. rubra_), the Live Oak (_Q. virens_), and the Willow Oak, with long narrow entire leaves (_Q. Phellos_); and the Turkey, Fulham, and Lucombe Oaks (_Q. Cerris_ and its varieties). All Oak trees are very liable to be attacked by a species of gnat, and which produces excrescences on the branches. The oak apples of the British Oak, and the galls of _Quercus infectoria_, which are used in making ink, are of this nature. The Kermes, an excrescence found on _Quercus coccifera_, is the work of a kind of Coccus, similar to that which produces the cochineal on the Opuntia.