22 THE WOODLANDS. 



In the Edda the council of the gods is said to be 

 held beneath the sacred ash, whose branches cover 

 the surface of the world, 



ASH SEED-VESSELS. 



Large trees of this species have been recorded. 

 Dr. Walker says that he measured the trunk of a dead 

 ash in the churchyard of Lochaber which was fifty- 

 eight feet in circumference at five feet from the 

 ground; and at Domrey, near Clare, in Galway, an 

 ash stood a few years since forty-two feet in circum- 

 ference at four feet from the ground. 



A curious circumstance is related by Dr. Plot of 

 an ash key (or winged seed, so called) rooting itself 

 on a decayed willow, and finding, as it increased, a 

 deficiency of nourishment in the mother plant, it began 

 to insinuate its fibres by degrees through the trunk 



