"wist man's wood" 75 



Their average height is, perhaps, 10 feet, the highest not exceeding 

 15 feet. Many are of bushy or scrubby habit, presenting no definite 

 stem, and few (if any) have a stem 4 feet high. In the case of 

 adult trees, presenting measurable stems, the average circumference 

 ranges from 14-60 ins., but one measured reached 78 ins. Yet these 

 toy-like oaks are unquestionably of great age— probably well over 

 500 years — as has been proved roughly by cutting sections in order 

 to count the number of concentric (annual) rings. This has been 

 done on several occasions ; but the results have not been conclusive, 

 owing chiefly to the narrowness and closeness of the rings, due to 

 extreme slowness of growth, from the hard conditions under which 

 the trees exist. 



The trees are remarkable also, apart from their small size, by 

 reason of their fantastically-gnarled and twisted branches, reminding 

 one strongly of the tiny Japanese trees grown in pots for decorative 

 purposes. A feature still more unusual (at any rate, so far as oaks 

 are concerned) is the extent to which even the topmost branches of 

 the older trees are overgrown by huge masses of moss, long shaggy 

 lichen, and Poli/podium vulfjare, giving them an enormously bulky 



appearance Yet, in spite of many statements to the contrary, 



the trees appear healthy (there being none either dead or dying). 

 Moreover, they produce acorns, though few in number. There are 

 also young trees. 



The wood has long been known, and there have been many notices 

 of it in print. The earliest was, probably, that of Tristram Risdon, 

 written just three centuries ago, which shows the wood to have been 

 then almost exactly the same, in all respects, as now. The others 

 (which include an "Ode" to the wood) are, for the most part, too 

 incorrect, or too pervaded by ideas of "Druids" and "Pyxies" as 

 inhabitants of the wood, or too tinged with poetic fancy, legend, and 

 superstition, to present many points of scientific interest. The present 

 is believed to be the first adequate description of the wood. 



HENRY WILLIAM LETT. 



(1838-1920.) 



The too limited number of Irish botanists has been further 

 reduced by the death in December of Canon Henry William Lett, 

 which occurred at his residence, Aghadei'g Glebe, Loughbrickland, 

 Co. Down. Born at Hillsborough in the same county in 1838, he 

 was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, was ordained in 1871, and, 

 after occupying various posts, became, thirty-four years ago, rector of 

 Aghaderg. 



An active clerical worker, Lett was a many-sided man ; he was 

 a member of the Belfast Naturalists' Field Club, in which he took 

 an active interest, of the Royal Irish Academy, and of other 

 bodies, and contributed to their publications. His first paper was 

 an appendix to the Proceedings of the Belfast Club (1884-5, 205- 

 316) on "The Fungi of the North of Ireland"; long before this, 

 however, he had taken up the study of mosses and hepatics, to which 



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