28 THE OAK. 



upon the window-panes in mid- winter ! The mosses 

 of the living oak are of precisely the same kind. 

 In their tender and elegant sympathies they make 

 no distinction between the overthrown tree and 

 the tree that stands in its pride. One of their 

 most exquisite specialities is that, like ivy and the 

 faithful wallflower, they are companions alike of 

 life and death, oftentimes adorning the one with 

 bright hues foreign to its nature, and never failing 

 to render the other beautiful. In the wild and 

 desolate region called Dartmoor, strangely situ- 

 ated in a county that otherwise is the " garden of 

 England," there is a truly wonderful spectacle of 

 this nature. On the left bank of the river, about 

 a mile above Two Bridges, the hillside is heaped 

 with blocks of granite, in the spaces between which 

 are nearly five hundred trees of the wavy-leaved 

 oak, singularly distorted. They are gnarled, knot- 

 ted, and twisted, seldom more than ten to four- 

 teen feet in height, and with a circumference not 

 exceeding five feet, and generally much less. The 

 belt is ragged and interrupted, and extends for the 

 distance of about half a mile. Such a group of 

 trees would not be extraordinary in itself: what 

 renders the scene so remarkable is that the 

 branches, except at the extremities, and this not 

 always, are completely matted over with a moss, 

 called by botanists, Anomodon curtipendulum. In 

 most cases the green covering is from ten to twelve 



