"Martin Richards" wrote in message
...
Sorry about this, but it confused the hell out of me...
http://www.barfoo.com/odds/oakbeam.jpg (97kb image)

We spent half term inflicting gardens and castles of Kent and Sussex on
the
kids. This particular garden was Wakehurst Place, Kew's country garden.
We'd stopped to look at a purple oak (obviously oak shaped leaves, but a
really deep purple - bizarre!), when I noticed these odd, almost oak-like
leaves on the tree next to it - unfortunately not labelled. At first I
thought it was just tangled up with a hornbeam (but be warned, oak and
conker is about the limit of my reliable tree identification!). Then I
realised there was only one tree! The trunk is smooth, not ribbed like an
oak, and some of the leaves are obviously 'right' for a hornbeam or
similar,
but others look distinctly lobed. Any given side stem seems to have the
same type of leaves, ie all oval, or all lobed on each stem, and there was
a
similar mix all over the tree - not just on this one branch. The oval
leaves are in the majority.

Ideas, anyone? Is it just diseased, or have I discovered some bizarre new
hybrid?!

Cheers,

Martin