PREHISTORIC FLORA. 323 



clined to think that of Italy has been, the changes which the woodlands 

 of this country have undergone since prehistoric times have been very 

 great indeed. 



Much weight must in the first place be laid upon the enormously 

 greater proportion of the entire surface of the country which was in 

 early times occupied by trees, though England is even at the present 

 day one of the best wooded of civilised countries ; for the influence of 

 this quantitative difference upon both man and beast must have been 

 important and many-sided to a degree which, in spite of all that has been 

 written by others, it is difficult to exaggerate. Qualitatively the 

 character of the trees which filled the plains, clothed the hillside, and 

 formed the sky-line of the neolithic period was a very different one from 

 that of those which stand at intervals in our hedges and enclosures and 

 bound our horizon, at least in our midland and southern counties. 

 Some difference of opinion exists among botanists as to whether the 

 ' common' elm, which is now perhaps the most abundant of our southern 

 and midland trees, is or is not indigenous 1 . I cannot but think that 

 the facts of its absence from parts of Great Britain which are separated 

 either by moorland or mountain from the southern and midland counties, 

 whilst it flourishes in such districts when once introduced into them, 

 coupled with the fact of its rarely seeding here, should incline us to the 

 latter view. It is obvious, as has often been suggested, that the Romans 

 who introduced the vine may have introduced with it the 'piller' elm, 



1 For the changes which have been produced in our indigenous flora by the suc- 

 cessive immigrants into or conquerors of this country, see De Candolle's Geographic 

 Botanique Baisonnee, 1855, vol. ii. pp. 645-705 ; the Rev. C. A. Johns, 'Forest Trees 

 of Great Britain,' who says (p. 42), ' If in my history of forest trees I were to confine 

 myself to those which are universally acknowledged to be indigenous to Britain, I 

 should soon bring my labours to a close. England, though once a well- wooded 

 country, never probably could boast of containing within it any great variety of 

 species ;' and Pearson, 'Historical Maps of England,' 1869, pp. 48, 49. 



For the question as to the indigenous character of the common elm, see De Candolle, 

 1. C, p. 690, and Watson and Bromfield, citt. in loco ; Pratt, ' Flowering Plants and 

 Ferns of Great Britain,' vol. iii. p. 98 ; Johns, 1. c. p. 227. The history of the common 

 elm, which, though multitudinous and prominent in our landscapes, has yet failed, as 

 its rarely seeding shows, to become really naturalised in our soil, may be taken as 

 corresponding, and curiously, if it be really a Roman importation, to that of the Latin 

 element in our language, which, though outnumbering by mere words the Teutonic or 

 Saxon element in the proportion of 29,354 to 13,330 (Thommerel, cit. Max Mutter, 

 1 Lectures on the Science of Language,' 1861, p. 74^, has never established itself in our 

 grammar. The wych-elm, which in spite of its more rapid growth and greater beauty 

 has nevertheless, owing probably to the lesser durabittty of its timber, had its area of 

 distribution in Great Britain curtailed by successive invaders, may in like manner be 

 considered to typify the history of the indigenous British races as encroached upon by 

 Teutonic and Scandinavian conquerors. 



Y 2 



