its spreading, and profound root; and this _Dalcampius_ will therefore have to be the _platyphyllos_ of _Theophrastus_, and as our botanists think, his _phegos_, as producing the most edible fruit. But to confine our selves; the _quercus urbana_, which grows more upright, and being clean and lighter is fittest for timber: And the _robur_, or _quercus silvestris_, (taking _robur_ for the general name, if at least contradistinct from the rest); which (as the name imports) is of a vast robust and inflexible nature, of an hard black grain; bearing a smaller acorn, and affecting to spread in branches, and to put forth his roots more above ground; and therefore in the planting, to be allow’d a greater distance, viz. from twenty five, to forty foot; (nay sometimes as many yards;) whereas the other shooting up more erect, will be contented with fifteen. This kind is farther to be distinguished by its fulness of leaves, which tarnish, and becoming yellow at the fall, do commonly clothe it all the winter; the roots growing very deep and stragling. The author of _Britannia Baconica_, speaks of an oak in Lanhadron-Park in Cornwall, which bears constantly leaves speckled with white; and of another call’d the painted oak; others have since been found at Fridwood, near Sittingbourn in Kent; as also sycamore and elms, in other places mentioned by the learned Dr. Plot in his _Nat. Hist._ of _Oxfordshire_: Which I only mention here, that the variety may be compar’d by some ingenious person thereabouts, as well as the truth of the fatal præ-admonition, of oaks bearing strange leaves: Besides that famous oak of _New Forest_ in _Hampshire_, which puts forth its buds about Christmass, but wither’d again before night; and was order’d (by our late King Charles II.) to be inclos’d with a Pale; (as I find it mentioned in the last edition of Mr. Camden’s _Brit._) And so was another before this; which his grandfather, King James, went to visit, and caused benches to be plac’d about it; which giving it reputation, the people never left hacking of the boughs and bark till they kill’d the tree: As I am told they have serv’d that famous oak near _White-Ladys_ which hid and protected our late Monarch from being discovered and taken by the Rebel-Soldiers, who were sent to find him, after his almost miraculous escape at the battel of _Worcester_. In the mean time, as to this extraordinary precosness, the like is reported of a certain wallnut-tree as well as of the famous white-thorns of _Glassenbury_, and blackthorns in several places. Some of our common oaks bear their leaves green all winter; but they are generally pollards, and such as are shelter’d in warm corners and hedge rows. To speak then particularly of oaks, and generally of all other trees of the same kind, (by some infallible characters) notice should be taken of the manner of their spreading, stature and growth, shape and size of the acorn, whether single or in clusters, the length or shortness of the