MOORLAND IDYLLS. 



endless vicissitudes and cataclysms in the 

 history of growth ; they show us how the 

 knotted trunk acquires its final form, and by 

 what course of evolution branch -added to 

 branch builds up at last the whole noble 

 shape of the buttressed beech or the spread- 

 ing horse-chestnut. Take, for example, our 

 dear old friend the ash. In summer you 

 can hardly discern through a canopy of 

 green the outline of his bent boughs, curved 

 downwards by their own weight of heavy 

 feathery foliage, each leaf a little branch 

 with numerous spreading leaflets. But when 

 autumn comes, and the heavy leaves drop 

 off one by one, you get revealed at once the 

 peculiar beauty of his mode of growth that 

 delicious combination of angular and curved 

 form which makes the ash the acknowledged 

 king of the winter woodland. All the 

 branches dip gracefully in a long arch to- 

 wards the end, and then rise again with an 

 abrupt curve ; this hooked type of terminal 

 bough being so distinctive and so well 



60 



