Pinus Sylvestris 577 



peat-mosses and submerged forests.^ In the south of England extensive forests 

 occurred in Neolithic times, when the existing peat-mosses began to form ; but in 

 other parts of the three kingdoms it is probable that the pine existed in many places 

 in historic times.^ 



Of its existence in a wild state until lately in England, the evidence is very 

 meagre. Holinshed,^ writing in 1586, says: "The firre, frankincense, and pine we 

 do not altogether want, especiallie the firre, whereof we haue some store in Chatleie 

 Moore in Darbishire, Shropshire, Andernesse, and a mosse neere Manchester, not 

 far from Leircesters house ; although that in time past not onelie all Lancastershire, 

 but a great part of the coast betweene Chester and the Solme were well stored." 

 According to the Rev. Abraham de la Pryme * there was a wood of wild pine on a 

 hill at Wareton in Staffordshire in his day, the beginning of the eighteenth century ; 

 and, in an old deed, fir trees were mentioned as growing scattered in Hatfield Chase 

 in Yorkshire about the year 1400, the last surviving aboriginal pine here being cut 

 down about 1670. The Wareton pines were described by Ray iii a note* dated 

 Oct. 14, 1669: "We rode to see the famous fir-trees, some 2^ miles distant from 

 Newport, in a village called Wareton in Shropshire," on the land of Mr. Skrimshaw. 

 There are of them thirty-five in number, very tall and straight, without a bough till 

 towards the top. The greatest, and which seems to be the mother of the rest, we 

 found by measure to be 145- feet round the body, and they say 56 yards high, which 

 to me seemed incredible. The tenant's name of the house close by these fir-trees 

 is Firchild, whose ancestors have been tenants to it for many generations." These 

 trees, according to Dr. Higgins* of Newport, are mentioned in an old book, Historia 

 Vegetablium Sacra, published in 1694 by Westmacott, who says there were thirty-six 

 of them, one of them being \']\ yards high. Withering,' writing in 1776, states that 

 the trees at Wareton were no longer existing in his time. Pine forests apparently 

 occurred in Roman times in the north of England, and remnants of these may have 

 existed down till a recent period, concerning which the late Professor Newton told 

 me of some very old Scots pines that used to grow about forty-five years ago on 

 Wretham Heath, Norfolk, which local tradition said had never been planted, but 

 grew there wild. They were always spoken of as the " DeaP Trees," all other trees 

 of this species that were planted being named Scotch firs. Whether there is any 

 real foundation for this tradition is very hard to say, but it is possible that the seed 



1 Cf. Clement Reid, Origin British Flora, pp. i6, 152 (1899) : " Remains of this tree are found in Neolithic deposits, 

 in ' submerged forests ' and at the base of peat-mosses, nearly throughout Britain and in Ireland. In late Glacial limes at 

 Bovey Tracey, Devon, and at Hoxne, Suffolk (in bed C ?). Abundantly in the preglacial strata of Norfolk, but not in any of 

 the interglacial deposits in Britain. During the Neolithic period it seems to have been one of our commonest trees ; but 

 afterwards disappeared from the southern half of England." 



^ The orchid, Goodyera repens, which was formerly supposed to grow only in wild coniferous forests, as in the Highlands 

 of Scotland, has begun to appear, of late years, in various localities, where the Scots Pine has been planted, both in England 

 and in France ; and the problem as to how the seeds of the orchid reach these plantations is still unsolved. Cf. Kew Bulletin, 

 1906, p. 293 ; Actes Premier Congrh Intemat. Bot. Paris, 382 (1900) ; and Fliche, in M^m. Acad. Stanislas, 1878. 



5 Holinshed's Chronicles, i. 358 (1807), reprint of the edition published in 1586. 



* Phil. Trans. No. 275, p. 980 (1701). 



' Derham, Memorials of John Ray, 25 (1846). 



' Wareton, now usually written Warton, is in Staffordshire, not far from the Shropshire boundary. 



' Botany, ii. 593 (1776). 



8 According to Britten and Holland, Diet. Eng. Plant-Names, 146 (1886), deal-tree is used for Pinus sylvestris in East 

 Anglia and Northamptonshire, the cone being commonly called deal-apple. 



