250 TBEES IN THE DOLOMITE DISTBICT. [Feb., 



the saplings were growing. from wide-spread and evidently very old 

 above-ground Beech roots. Down by the river at Cortina I have 

 found a crowd of young Ash saplings growing from old Ash roots, 

 that sometimes completely framed boulders of considerable size. At 

 the back of the railway station of Mori, I found a lot of Oaks, about 

 sixty years old, growing in the midst of rocks. Five such trees, 

 besides scrub, grew from a wide growth of Oak roots curled 

 round a rock, and from a hole in the root I picked a bunch 

 of Cyclamen. These Oaks are all that remain of the vast 

 Oak forests found there by the Romans, who gave the name of 

 Roburetum to the neighbouring town now called Eoveredo. It 

 used to be the custom in England to lop off the young branches of 

 trees to feed the deer in winter ; the Tyrolese now do so to feed goats 

 and to fodder their cattle, for they have no straw, and also for fire- 

 wood. On going from Cortina to Caprile, I found the Hanks of Top- 

 hana, 6,500 ft. above sea-level, thickly clothed with Larch and with 

 Eed and White Pine, but few trees were more than four feet in girth, 

 and it surprised me not to find in the midst of the present generation 

 any relics of old giants ; none of those rotten stumps of Fir trees from 

 fifteen to twenty feet in girth which are so common in the woods 

 round Eosenlaui. On descending towards Andras, and beyond it, the 

 timber was finer, and they were sawing wood three feet in diameter 

 at a saw-mill we passed. Dolomite valleys are generally lined with 

 Red and White Pine and Larch, but the new carriage-road from 

 Agordo to Primiero winds down and up two parallel valleys, only 

 about ten miles apart, and yet the vegetation is very different. The 

 bleak, precipitous cliffs of the Agordo valley grow Fir trees in small 

 number, whereas the Schennero valley is well lined with young 

 Beech and other trees to the almost complete exclusion of Fir trees. 

 The grandest drive in the Dolomite district is that from Primiero to 

 Predazzo. Starting from Primiero, which is 2,345 ft. above sea- 

 level, the road ascends for four hours, following the Cismone torrent 

 river, encircling and getting nearer and nearer to the illuminated 

 cliffs of the Cimon Mountain group. At 4,800 ft. above sea-level 

 we passed the beautiful downs of San Martino, lying in their Fir-clad 

 amphitheatre of Porphyry mountains. We had still one hour to 

 climb before reaching the summit of the Costonzello Pass, when at 

 last the huge perpendicular rocky mass of Cimon della Palla, crowned 

 with rose-coloured splinters, nearly 11,000 ft. above sea-level, shone 

 forth in all its glory, towering above dark festoons of Fir forests. Xor 

 was this all ; for on the other side of the road there rose other moun- 

 tains, so solemn and dreary that the very trees refused to cling to 

 their sides : the rounded, dark, purple mountains of the Porphyry 

 formation, which divide with the Dolomites this part of the Tyrol. 



