154 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



On the other hand, there are, of course, many plantations pure 

 and simple which have been made on moorland, heath, grassland, 

 or arable land, and which may, of course, consist of native trees 

 or of exotic trees, or of a mixture of the two. But between these 

 two extremes, according to the conclusions of all the members 

 of the British Vegetation Committee who have given any special 

 attention to this subject, come the great majority of the British 

 woods, which are neither virgin forest, nor plantations de ?iovo, 

 but which are the lineal descendants, so to speak, of primitive 

 woods ! " 



Thus, while there would appear to be in England an undoubted 

 scarcity of "Urwald," as such, it might be advanced that in 

 Scotland, which has never been densely populated, where 

 cultivation has never extended beyond a certain limit, and where 

 the mountainous nature of the country afifords many examples of 

 woodlands approaching the upper limit of tree-growth, one 

 might expect to find woods which more or less conform to the 

 primitive woodland type. Also the average climatic conditions 

 which prevail, especially in the Highlands, are rather rigorous. 

 For these reasons, it may be of interest to ascertain what 

 indigenous trees, undergrowth, etc., constitute these forests. 

 Generally speaking, I have found the number of prevailing trees 

 to be comparatively small, and that they tend to form pure 

 woods of this "Urwald" type. Such a pure wood may be said 

 to give the simplest type, because in it the various formative 

 factors of the locality find expression on the same area, and in 

 one species. Thus it would seem that modifications of and 

 divergences from virgin forest might be more easily observed 

 and possibly explained, than in the more complex cases of 

 " Urwald " consisting of a mixture of species. 



The observations dealt with here were made in woods selected 

 as suitable after a preliminary examination of practically all the 

 woods in the districts referred to. Observation areas were 

 established in the selected woods, and were visited periodically 

 from early spring on to late autumn. No attempt was made 

 to distribute these stations uniformly over the area, as, especially 

 in the part of the area lying south of the Forth and Clyde, and 

 extending to the Borders, it was somewhat difficult to find woods 

 representative of any primitive forest type at all. In this district 

 I fixed upon the following woodlands : — Presmanon, Haddington- 

 shire ; Hartside and Gateheuch in Berwickshire ; Dalkeith Park 



