Di doesent know or she ain't tellin'

Di wrote:
"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