THE OAK. 27 



trees and hawthorns. Some twenty or thirty other 

 kinds of trees have been noticed as bearing it, the 

 lime, for example, the poplar, and the acacia ; but the 

 two former are evidently its favourites. Because 

 of the difficulty referred to as regards the Druids' 

 mistletoe, some authors have supposed that another 

 species, not now found in England, though plentiful 

 in some parts of the Continent, may at the time of 

 the Druids' worship have existed in our own country, 

 and that it was extirpated either by themselves, or 

 by those who sought to help forward Christianity by 

 effacing every particular connected with paganism. 

 The plant referred to is called by botanists Loranthus 



The epiphytes which give beauty to the oak, 

 chiefly belong to that section of plants termed the 

 Flowerless. Not that they are absolutely without 

 flowers, but that the parts are too small to be viewed 

 without the aid of a microscope, and thus that they 

 are " flowerless " only when compared with a rose 

 or a lily, or even with a grass from the meadow. 



Those of their race which seek the kindly service 

 of the forest-monarch are principally mosses and 

 ferns. How sweet on a summer's day to rest awhile, 

 when wandering in the woodland, on the green 

 mantle that overspreads some prostrate trunk, 

 noting the fairy forest of its elastic foliage, and the 

 pretty little sprays that dart out upon every side, 

 shooting hither and thither like the frost-flowers 



