88 FAMILIAR TREES 



seed. As a park tree, no variety excels this typical 

 form, which is seen to the greatest advantage when 

 standing alone, as the drooping boughs are then able 

 to display all their natural grace of curvature. 



There are many fine specimens of this tree in the 

 Lowlands of Scotland, and in various parts of England; 

 but, from confusion of nomenclature, the Wych Elm 

 is hardly distinguished from the Common Elm by the 

 majority of Continental observers. At Ashtead Park, 

 Surrey, there is a magnificent tree, said to date from 

 the time of William Rufus. Its massive, though much 

 decayed trunk and lofty wide-spreading limbs produce 

 in the mind of the lover of trees an echo of the 

 apostrophe of Allan Quatermain, who says : 



" I do love a good tree. There it stands so strong and sturdy, 

 and yet so beautiful a very type of the best sort of man. How 

 proudly it lifts its bare head to the winter storms, and with what a 

 full heart it rejoices when the spring has come again 1 How grand 

 its voice is, too, when it talks with the wind : a thousand iEolian 

 harps cannot equal the beauty of the sighing of a great tree in leaf. 

 All day it points to the sunshine and all night to the stars, and thus 

 passionless, and yet full of life, it endures through the centuries 

 come storm, come shine drawing its sustenance from the cool 

 bosom of its mother earth, and, as the slow years roll by, learning the 

 great mysteries of growth and of decay. And so on and on through 

 generations, outliving individuals, customs, dynasties all save the 

 landscape it adorns and human nature till the appointed day when 

 the wind wins the long battle and rejoices over a reclaimed space, 

 or decay puts the last stroke to his fungus-fingered work. Ah ! one 

 should always think twice before one cuts down a tree I " 



