the shore,[215] and is found of service in checking the advance of
the sand dunes, which have a tendency to encroach seriously on the
cultivable soil.

Of the upland trees the most common is the oak. There are three species
of oak in the country. The most prevalent is an evergreen oak (_Quercus
pseudococcifera_), sometimes mistaken by travellers for a holly,
sometimes for an ibex, which covers in a low dense bush many miles of
the hilly country everywhere, and occasionally becomes a large tree
in the Lebanon valleys,[216] and on the flanks of Casius and Bargylus.
Another common oak is _Quercus Ægilops_, a much smaller and deciduous
tree, very stout-trunked, which grows in scattered groups on Carmel and
elsewhere, "giving a park-like appearance to the landscape."[217] The
third kind is _Quercus infectoria_, a gall-oak, also deciduous, and very
conspicuous from the large number of bright, chestnut-coloured,
viscid galls which it bears, and which are now sometimes gathered for
exportation.[218]

Next to the oak may be mentioned the walnut, which grows to a great size
in sheltered positions in the Lebanon range, both upon the eastern and
upon the western flank;[219] the poplar, which is found both in the
mountains[220] and in the low country, as especially about Beyrout;[221]
the Aleppo pine (_Pinus halepensis_), of which there are large woods in
Carmel, Lebanon, and Bargylus,[222] while in Casius there is an
enormous forest of them;[223] and the carob (_Ceratonia siliqua_), or
locust-tree, a dense-foliaged tree of a bright lucid green hue, which
never grows in clumps or forms woods, but appears as an isolated tree,
rounded or oblong, and affords the best possible shade.[224] In the
vicinity of Tyre are found also large tamarisks, maples, sumachs, and
acacias.[225]