BRITAIN 299 



oak rises higher than the beech, and with the help of the 

 Scots pine constitutes a second belt of deciduous forests 

 poorer than those of the lower reaches and lowlands; 

 the forest intermingles with hill pastures in a third zone, 

 and moorlands constitute the fourth. Curiously enough, 

 this order is the reverse of that prevailing among central 

 European mountains where beech forests mixed with 

 conifers occur above the oaks and mark the upper belt 

 of summer-green, broad-leaf forests; but it is in ac- 

 cordance with the order of succession prevailing among 

 the Scandinavian mountains and also with the extension 

 of the beech and oak in latitude, when the beech stops 

 nearer south than the oak. In this respect, therefore, 

 the British highlands are related rather with the 

 northern mountains than with those of central Europe. 



Above the oak belt, at altitudes ranging from 700 to 

 900 feet, the conifers remain in almost exclusive posses- 

 sion of the ground to an elevation reaching, in places, 

 over 2,000 feet ; they are accompanied by the birch, and 

 both form the tree-limit. The actual woods, however, 

 are extremely few and scattered. Moorlands, peatbogs, 

 and various kinds of hill pastures occupy nearly the 

 whole of the surface, while alpine pastures, moors, and 

 wastes occur above the coniferous or subalpine belt. 

 The British mountains lack the larch, the Norway spruce, 

 the silver fir, the arolla, and mountain pine. They 

 show only the Scots pine, and, as subordinate species, 

 the yew and juniper. Similar deficiencies are noticeable 

 among the broad -leaf trees and shrubs, not to mention 

 humbler plants, which, once introduced, thrive and spread 

 just as well as in their native countries. An early 

 separation from Scandinavia and from the Continent 

 before Britain was fully stocked with European plants, 

 appears to be responsible for the absence of a number of 



