primitive woodland and plantation types in scotland. i 75 



Conclusions. 



It may be taken, then, that the various types of " Urwald " 

 described represent some of the more concrete and typical 

 examples of natural plant associations included in the area under 

 consideration. This being so, it is endeavoured here to interpret 

 the observations made in these woodlands, in so far as they 

 appear to have some bearing on the problem of the afforestation 

 of the "hill pasture" and "deer forest" which surround them. 



At the outset, from observation and from a study of the various 

 influences which have modified these natural woodlands in the 

 past, and also from comparisons made with existing plantations 

 of the same species in the same localities, these woodlands at no 

 period seem to have represented normally stocked and developed 

 forests. The factors of the locality also in which they are 

 situated, have probably changed considerably during the life of 

 the forest. For the above reasons alone, it would scarcely seem 

 possible to ascertain the quality of any locality from its natural 

 woodlands, by considering them as crops of trees produced by the 

 locality, and therefore as guides to the assessment of its yield 

 capacity. But it may be asked whether these natural plant associa- 

 tions form any index at all to the quality of the locality in which 

 they occur ? For the following reasons, the answer to this would 

 seem to be in the affirmative. In the first place, these natural 

 woodlands, having the distribution already referred to, show that 

 the least exacting of our indigenous tree species, namely birch, 

 occupies in the main that part of the locality which appears to 

 be least favourable to tree-growth. The more exacting Scots pine 

 is observed to take up a somewhat intermediate position in this 

 respect ; while oak finds a development in valley bottoms, on 

 river banks and loch sides, or, generally speaking, in that part of 

 the locality which seems best suited to tree-growth. In addition, 

 the fact that while birch " scrub " association consists of practi- 

 cally pure forest, oak " Urwald " usually contains a variety of 

 species, may not be without significance ; in the latter, an 

 increase in the number of species may be safely assumed to indi- 

 cate more favourable conditions for tree-growth. 



In a similar manner, consider the ground floras of these 

 primitive woodland types. With this in view, the specific case 

 of the pure larch plantation Tor a Mhiult, in Inverness-shire, may 

 not be without interest. This is undoubtedly one of the finest 



