The Forest Trees of Wiltshire. . 137 
found in a native state here in the woods and forests, but is gener- 
ally confined to the neighbourhood of man’s abode, where it has 
been planted,” the writer of these pages cannot say. He is not, 
as he has intimated above, a book-learned man, nor a learned man 
at all; but taking into consideration the very numerous individual 
trees that may be found scattered all over the country, particularly 
in the south-western counties, trees of gigantic growth and bearing 
every evidence of extreme old age; and with the fact staring him 
in the face that whole districts—(take the Trowbridge valley as an 
instance)—-are thickly covered with this tree, and would, as before 
_ stated, become a forest in a few years, as dense a forest as any that 
ever covered any part of these islands, were they to be left to a state 
of nature, he cannot but think that the elm has as good a claim to 
_ be numbered among our indigenous trees as any other, in the absence 
_ of anything like evidence to the contrary. Anyhow, wherever its 
_ original home may happen to have been, it has gained an inde- 
_ feasible settlement in this country for itself and its numerous family. 
_ Most people are aware that the elm is frequently attacked, 
| in some hollow place, or on a wound where a branch has been 
broken off, by a parasitic growth, in the shape of a mushroom-like 
looking fungus. But it is not so generally known that “one of 
the most singular of all vegetable growths, the ‘Jew’s Ear,’ 
although not altogether peculiar to, appears frequently on the 
trunk of the elm-tree. It is not confined to the living tree, but 
will at times appear on elm-stakes and gate-posts. In its early 
state it does not always take the precise form of an ear; but when 
_well-grown it presents an exact counterpart of a human ear, the 
folding, and undulations, and the delicate veining, are exact dupli- 
cates of the ear of man. The substance is dusky, downy, soft, and 
flesh-like, and is in every way a precise and startling transcript of 
the human original. The ‘Jew’s Ear’ has been well known from 
very ancient times, and was at one time, and is in some places now 
supposed to possess magical curative powers. It is still an article 
__ of commerce, and sold in some markets, both at home and abroad.” 
= But to come to individual trees. There may be larger, there 
_ may be finer and handsomer elms, but so far as the writer’s know- 

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