WINTER ASPECTS 207 



death, with earth and with green and flowering plant. 

 This phenomenon is common enough, but in no place 

 known to me is the landscape so deeply and so con- 

 stantly coloured by dead bracken as on these slopes, 

 on account of the great abundance of the plant and 

 the excessive moisture in the atmosphere. 



In other parts of the county where trees grow a 

 curious effect of the excessive humidity is seen in 

 some woods, especially in deep valleys and coombes 

 sheltered from the winds, in which the mists remain 

 longest. Here you will find the trees thickly clothed 

 from the roots to the highest terminal twigs with long 

 coarse grey lichen like that which grows so abundantly 

 on the granite boulders on the slopes and the rocks 

 on the headlands. The trees are leafless but not 

 naked in winter and look as if covered with a grey 

 foliage, or grey with a faint tinge of green. The 

 effect is not only singular ; in walking through such 

 a wood under the grey canopy of branches, and when 

 you come out into an open glade and see the trees in 

 multitudes extending far beyond and all clothed in the 

 same dim mysterious unearthly colour, you are apt 

 to have the fancy that you are in a ghostly wood and 

 are, perhaps, a ghost yourself. 



Another singular and magnificent effect of dead 

 bracken where it flourishes greatly among furze 

 bushes can be best seen among the hills. 



The first time I particularly noticed this effect was 

 in April near Boldre, in the New Forest, a good many 

 years ago. There was a patch of furze about three acres 

 in extent, where the big rounded bushes grew so close 



