History of Rare Plants Observed in Pannonia

HISTORY OF PANNONIAN PLANTS
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and more rough: it has leaves divided with more frequent but less deep incisions than the common oak, and they hang from longer and thinner stalks. It has shorter branches covered with more frequent nodes, smaller buds, and some slender little leaves like threads or hairs surrounding them. The acorn cups are attached to the branches of the previous year by a short, thick stalk. These are not found in the leaf joints, but are entirely bristly and softly prickly The author uses "echinatos," comparing the prickly acorn cup to a sea urchin or hedgehog.. Within these is an oak acorn that is slightly shorter and has a blunter tip, which reaches maturity in autumn. Sometimes, scaly heads made of many layers also stick between the leaves.

Farmers and woodcutters know very well how to distinguish this tree from the common oak. They consider its wood to be whiter and looser, and less suitable for construction or skilled work.

Turkey Oak or Aegilops.

Pliny, in the sixteenth book, chapter five of his Natural History, calls this tree Cerrus. In the third book, chapter nine of Theophrastus’s History of Plants, it is called aegilops original: "ἀιγίλωψ". It is known as Cerraitchel by the Germans and chér fa by the Hungarians The Turkey Oak, known scientifically today as Quercus cerris..

Petrified wood.

Iron Mountain.

I have seen fragments of this Turkey Oak, both thick and thin branches weighing a pound or more, which had turned into stone. The very core of the wood was converted into black flint, though the surface remained white and brittle. These stones still retain the natural veins of the wood, the growth rings, and the rest of its original form. I did not only see these after they were dug up, or receive them as a gift from the Illustrious Lord Balthasar de Batthyány A powerful Hungarian nobleman and significant patron of Clusius who shared his passion for botany. (who will be mentioned often in this history). I also gathered them myself on the slope of the mountain commonly called Eisenberg original: "Eysenberg"; literally "Iron Mountain," located on the modern border of Austria and Hungary.. This mountain looms over the Pinka river of Pannonia where the land slopes down toward the Pinka valley original: "Pinka thal", named after the river that flows through it. This slope faces the South and the South-Southwest original: "λιβόνοτον".

This mountain was once covered with forests of Common Oak and Turkey Oak, just as the neighboring mountains still are. But now, indeed, there are vineyards...