MOORLAND IDYLLS. 



monotonous, more sickly sweet, than the 

 unvarying green of tropical forests ; while 

 the grateful contrast of drooping birch twigs 

 or big-budded bare oak branches 'with the 

 dark and sombre verdure of our northern 

 Scotch firs, is in itself one of the chief charms 

 of English winter. During the Tertiary 

 period, indeed, our English woods were full 

 of large-leaved evergreens of the southern 

 types camphors and cinnamons, and rhodo- 

 dendrons and liquidambars ; but with the 

 coming on of the Great Ice Age those lush 

 southern forms were driven southward for 

 ever, leaving us only the Scotch fir, the yew, 

 and the juniper, with a few broader-leaved 

 kinds of shiny evergreen, of which holly, ivy, 

 and box are the most familiar examples. 

 These, with the exotic laurels and aucubas, 

 the daphnes and the laurustinuses, are quite 

 enough to diversify pleasantly our northern 

 scenery. Then our recent acquisitions of 

 exotic conifers, like the Douglas pines, the 

 sequoias, and the beautiful glaucous firs, " the 



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