There is likewise the _esculus_, which though _Vitruvius_, _Pliny_, _Dalcampius_ and others take for a smaller kind, _Virgil_ celebrates for 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.