135 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



becoming shorter and the branches more spreading and drooping on account of the 

 heavier snowfall, so that when adult they assume a regular pyramidal or conical 

 shape. At 3500 ft., a tree 3 ft in diameter showed 420 rings ; and on the top of 

 Kubany at 4100 ft., another with a diameter of 2 ft. had 235 rings. On the 

 Arber mountain, the highest peak of all, at 4200 ft., Goppert saw a tree 3 ft. thick, 

 but only 40 ft. in height ; but even at this elevation the majority of the trees are 

 neither crippled nor diseased, as is often the case near the limit of trees in the Alps 

 and Riesengebirge, where they are covered with lichens. 



Above these altitudes the lower branches often spread on the ground and form 

 natural layers, which grow upright and make a colony of small trees around their 

 parent. Such an instance is shown in plate i. fig. 2, and another even more curious 

 on fig. 3, where the main trunk of a tree about 5 ft. in girth curved to one side 

 and threw up a secondary straight stem from the nearly horizontal part of its bole. 

 Figure 4 shows a fallen stem 32 ft. long, which remained living and bore no 

 less than five erect trees from 10 to 37 ft. high, which apparently drew the 

 whole of their nourishment from the original roots of the parent tree. 



Another peculiarity which occasionally appears in these forests are trees with 

 immense swellings on their trunk, in the form of irregular burrs equally developed 

 all round the trunk. Plate i. fig. 5, shows a spruce 18 in. in diameter at the ground, 

 which has a regular swelling, shaped like a flattened orange, no less than 12 ft. in 

 diameter, and from the centre of which the straight trunk again emerges with a 

 diameter of 16 in. Goppert saw in Silesia an even more extraordinary tree (plate i. 

 fig. 6), which was 45 ft. high and 2 ft. in diameter near the ground. At 7 ft. a regular 

 swelling suddenly began (which is described as covered with many branches, but in 

 the drawing shows none on one side) with a diameter of 10 to 12 ft. and 23 ft. high, 

 above which it tapers off into a normal stem. No disease could be found in the bark 

 or wood, which appeared completely sound, and the upper part of the tree is shown 

 crowded with healthy branches. 



A remarkable group of four spruces growing at timber line (about 1850 metres 

 altitude), on the north side of the Great Scheidegg, is figured by Dr. Klein, 1 which from 

 their position appear to have all sprung from peeds which have grown on a rotting 

 trunk. Another remarkable illustration of the effect of wind on the growth of the spruce 

 at high elevations is shown in plate 54 of the same work. A group of trees growing 

 at about 4600 ft. on the Feldberg in the Black Forest, from 10 to 16 ft. high, have 

 the branches cut off clean on the west side, which is attributed by Dr. Klein not alone 

 to the drying effect of the wind in winter and spring, but also to the heating of the 

 branches on one side only by the sun. In the same work are several illustrations 

 of the dense spruce bushes,*called " feisstannli " by the Swiss, which are common in 

 alpine regions, and are caused by the constant cropping of goats and sheep. 



In the virgin forests of the Capella Mountains in Croatia I saw, in 19 10, some 

 spruce of immense height ; 2 and measured one of about 1 70 ft. by 1 2\ ft. I was 

 informed that, in this forest, spruce had been felled 190 ft. high and about 12 ft. in 



1 Karsten and Schenck, Vegetationsbilder, II, t. 38 (1905). 

 1 Cf. Quart. Journ. Forestry ', v. 31 (191 1). 



