TREES AND SHRUBS 123 



crag. Scotch firs and heather are com- there is good reason to believe that the 

 panions in many and many a landscape common elm is not of the genuine 

 picture of the lands beyond Trent, British lineage, though it has long been 

 where the elm is found no more ; but so deeply characteristic of some of 

 none the less the Scotch fir is far more the most typical English landscapes, 

 rarely a natural and native growth in If the elm was actually introduced by 

 the wilds of the deer-grass and the the Romans, as is with likelihood sup- 

 ling, than aspen, alder, birch, hawthorn posed, it was only the forerunner of 

 and holly. many other of our best-known trees 

 For of all our native British trees, which without doubt came to us by 

 the Scotch pine, or fir, is probably similar means. No account survives 

 the rarest in its ancient and natural of the introduction of the lime ; but 

 haunts, and the commonest, owing to even to-day it has not established its 

 its hardiness, picturesqueness and place as a free denizen of the natural 

 speed of growth, in transplanted and wood and field, and bears every sign 

 introduced conditions. The ancient of being an exotic species in origin, in 

 Caledonian pine-forest is believed to spite of its long habituation to English 

 survive only in one limited tract ; skies. The sycamore is another 

 on the other hand, the past hundred such species ; according to tradition, 

 years have seen thousands upon it was first introduced, in the neigh- 

 thousands of acres planted with this bourhood of Edinburgh, by Mary 

 tree in nearly every part of our Queen of Scots. So too with the 

 islands. The great pine-woods of sweet or Spanish chestnut, which 

 Windsor Forest and western Surrey for a long time past has held a con- 

 are, for example, a mere nursery gar- spicuous place in many of the less 

 den of late Georgian growth. Thus ancient and natural woodlands and 

 the Scotch fir, an original British copses, especially in the south-eastern 

 species but a foreigner in most of its counties. It is doubtful whether 

 present haunts, forms a link between the downy-leaved white poplar is 

 our genuine native trees and all those a true native species, as is certainly, 

 other kinds which have been naturalized on the other hand, the smaller and 

 for many centuries, but are none the greener-leaved aspen ; the large, 

 less exotic in origin. Though the branching, brittle black poplar is an 

 point is scarcely capable of proof, undoubted introduction, while the 



