FLOWERS OF THE WOODS AND COPSES 
In this section we have a group of shade-loving plants or Hylo- 
phytes. Each plant is influenced by the juxtaposition of other plants, 
and so the woodland plants are bound together. In extended form a 
wood with scattered trees tends to assume the character of a meadow 
of the type included in Section II]. The hedgerows which divide fields 
and roadways give shelter to a few such woodland plants. The wood- 
land plants are Mesophytes with regard to water requirements. 
Several alterations in the surrounding conditions are brought about 
by the association of trees, which influence— 
Light (woods are shaded and dark), 
Warmth (woods are cold and dank), 
Moisture (woods are moist and attract moisture). 
In a wood, moreover, plants are exposed to greater enemies, 
such as:— 
(1) Fungi. 
(2) Animal pests. 
There are several types of woodland which may be briefly re- 
ferred to. 
First of all there is what we may call bushland. This is not the 
result of a low temperature, as in Polar tracts, but of cultivation. ‘There 
are numerous districts where the borders of virgin forest are repeatedly 
cut down and treated as plantations with saplings, which are meso- 
phytic bushland. 
Then wherever fox coverts as in the shires are planted, or coverts 
for game are made, there is usually a mixture of bush, deciduous wood, 
and coniferous woodland put down artificially which may answer to 
this type. Here we find Sloe, Hawthorn, Brier, Dogwood, Barberry, 
Bramble, &c., which sometimes form locally a distinct feature. They 
may also be the normal result, as in Blackthorn coverts, of leaving 
country to return to a wild state. There is a characteristic ground 
flora of meadow or pratal species depending on altitude. 
