102 WILD FLOWERS OF SCOTLAND 



Ash and poplar are more in the open, and run 

 along the lanes which join the wood patches. 



Under the fir trees, the under-growth is whin. 

 Where the beech tells of deeper soil, the broom 

 flowers, though less freely, and with more appear- 

 ance of leaf, than out in the sun. 



The floor, too, is tell-tale : it is rude and un- 

 kempt. No one ever planted a forest there. The 

 site is elevated, reached by a sudden rise of 

 several feet from the river. It is really a moor- 

 land stretch, in a shallow depression of a chain of 

 hills, whose summits are about three miles away. 



No soft wood-meadow grasses grow here; the 

 hard yet graceful waved-heath grasses are a little 

 more silvery of hue than those of the open ; that 

 is, in so far as there is room for grasses of any 

 kind, amid the blaeberries and other moorland and 

 mountain shrubs. 



These woods of fir, with their mingling of oak 

 and sprinkling of beech, and their rude under- 

 growth and carpet, are typical of Scotland. 



The patch I most care for is two miles away, 

 and involves a climb of another two hundred feet. 

 It has a further mark of antiquity in its name. It 

 is called "The Emmocks," probably the wood of 

 the ants. A cart-road, marked by two running 



