Trees Associated with the Queen It is pleasing to know
that among the trees being set in the new grove in Richmond Park and associated with the name of the Queen is numbered the hornbeam. It is a tree pot very widely known or distributed, but flourishes peculiarly round about the Queen's old home. There and in Essex on the boundaries of London marks hesoquarters. The illustrator of a book on the natural history of London actually took from there- abouts sprays of " keys " as models. The thinly patterned catkins in brown and green and white are today in full glory, promising abundant bundles of keys for the hawfinches which seem to be most numerous where the horn- beam grows in Epping Forest as in Hertfordshire. The wood is peculiarly hard. In fixing wire round a number of young plantations of trees it was found that the post of hornbeams outlived other woods, though it could not, of course, compare with such iron-hearted wood as flourishes in our Antipodes, say gidea from West Australia. Hornbeam is best known doubt- less as a hedge-plant—and it makes a good hedge, though beech is more comely in winter—but if allowed it will grow into a handsome and long- lived tree.
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