174 VOICES FROM THE WOODLANDS. 



the supporting column, the lower ones forming an ample 

 circumference, and feathering with their twigs nearly to the 

 ground ; the second of somewhat shorter growth, the third 

 forming a smaller circle, and thus gradually each tier of 

 branches lessened in their growth, till at length the whole 

 assumed that pyramidal form which renders the elm pre- 

 eminent among its brethren. 



Evelyn conjectures that the elm was introduced into 

 Britain by the Bomans, in connection with their vineyards. 

 He founded this idea on the well-known fact that elms are 

 less prevalent in the northern than in the southern portion 

 of our island. But the geography of plants had not then 

 attracted the attention of the botanist ; trees were admired 

 for their beauty, and said to flourish better in one kind of 

 soil than another ; but men knew little of that wondrous 

 law which restricts one plant to a certain locality, and 

 prohibits it from advancing into another, though separated 

 only by an imaginary boundary. Thus, among native plants, 

 that handsome creeper, the lady's seal, or black bryony, 



