The male catkins of the common British Oak (_Quercus Robur pedunculata_) are long and very few flowered; the flowers being small and very far apart. The flowers themselves have six or eight stamens and as many feathery bracts, which are united at the base. The female flowers (_a_ in _fig._ 85) are produced on a long stalk at a distance from each other, and each consists of an ovary closely covered with a toothed calyx, as shown in the highly-magnified flower at (_c_), and an involucre of several bracts or scales, (_d_); the style is short and thick, and the stigma (_e_) is three-lobed. As the fruit ripens, the style and stigma wither away, and the seed remains covered by the adnate calyx (_b_), which has become hard and shining. There is a circular mark or scar at the bottom of the acorn when taken out of its cup, which is called the hilum; and when the acorn is planted, this part should be kept upwards, as the foramen or part where the germ lies is at the other end. When the acorn begins to germinate, it opens at the foramen, cracking a little about half-way down, but not dividing entirely (see _fig._ 86). The root (_a_) then begins to protrude, and soon after the plumule, or young shoot (_b_), the leaves of which gradually unfold themselves. A curious experiment may be tried by suspending an acorn in a glass of water, or by placing it in one of those glasses with a wide mouth and a narrow neck, used for nosegays; when, if kept in a sitting-room, the acorn will gradually open, and the root and leaves develop themselves; and thus may be watched the first beginning of the monarch of the forest, the progress of which is so strikingly depicted in the beautiful lines adapted by Cowper to the hollow trunk of a gigantic oak in Yardley Chase near Castle Ashby:— Thou wert a bauble once, a cup and ball Which babes might play with; and the thievish jay, Seeking her food, with ease might have purloin’d The auburn nut that held thee, swallowing down Thy yet close folded latitude of boughs, And all thy embryo vastness, at a gulp. Time made thee what thou wert—King of the Woods! And time hath made thee what thou art—a cave For owls to roost in! Once thy spreading boughs O’erhung the champaign, and the numerous flock That grazed it, stood beneath that ample cope Uncrowded, yet safe shelter’d from the storm.