THE PINE. 47 



this is very rarely the case, so rarely, that the ex- 

 ception is merely the proof of the rule. No wood- 

 bine ever twines round the stem of a pine or fir. 

 The wild clematis, that loves to deck other trees 

 with its flossy tufts, at the season when red berries 

 abound, is to the conifers an utter stranger. Even 

 brambles and wild roses, which often contrive to 

 find a lodgment for their upper trailers amid the 

 boughs of the forest, are denied entrance by the 

 conifer. To all comers there is still the same old 

 dignified refusal of admission. 



Partly owing to the dead leaves upon the soil, 

 and partly to the dense and unbroken shade given 

 by the conifers, and by none more decidedly than 

 by our indigenous species, in the pine-wood again 

 there is an almost painful dearth of herbaceous 

 vegetation, and consequently of flowers. No one 

 ever gathers primroses in a pine-wood. The 

 ground is never lighted up with anemones ; nor do 

 blue-bells or forget-me-nots spread carpets of azure 

 upon it. A few procumbent brambles, serving 

 only as traps for the feet ; a few of the larger 

 kinds of sylvan shield-fern, and a few mosses that 

 grow in cushion-form tufts, constitute nearly the 

 whole of the vegetation. Scattered among their 

 alien-looking foliage are the withered brown 

 needles and the emptied cones that have fallen from 

 overhead, perhaps even years ago, for they are slow 

 to decay; and except that quaint fungi spring up 



