282 BOTANY OF WYRE FOREST. 
large tree of Tilia parvifolia was blown down by a great hurri- 
cane, which happened in 1846, at Dowles; it measured in cir- 
cumference, seven feet from the ground, seventeen feet seven 
inches, a perfectly healthy tree, with no signs of decay. Of the 
indigenous claim of this species there can be no doubt, nor, I 
believe, of Tilia grandifolia, which I find in my wanderings in 
our woods, hedges, and in ravines, its stratal adaptation is the 
old and new red sandstone. I find it in the oldest hedges, m 
woods, in a rude ravine, in which runs Gladder Brook; here, on 
its rocky banks, it is found occasionally for three or four miles 
mingling in friendly union with Ulmus montana, the one as truly 
indigenous here as the other, and dispersed in other places con- 
tiguous. Some very large old pollards have lately been cut 
down, one in Ribbesford Wood, a grotesque, shapeless mass, — 
having vast protuberances, covered with branchlets, which is the 
case with this species: it measured in circumference nearly 
twenty feet. Another in Habberley Valley, a shapeless vegetable 
mass; its whole trunk hung in air as it were, for the rock, from 
the ravages of time, had disappeared from beneath; it was sus- 
tamed by its massive roots, which spread in the soil above. This 
tree undoubtedly was self-planted more than a thousand years 
ago; it is found also in several places in this locality in old 
hedges. It is not to be supposed that those trees were ever 
planted over so extensive a locality, when the whole country was 
nothing else but a forest, when the object was only to destroy 
instead of plant. There may be some doubts of the indigenous 
claim of Tilia europea, yet I find it in old hedges but sparingly. 
Those trees, in unfavourable seasons, do not perfect their seed ; 
sometimes seedlings may be found. I have frequently raised 
them from seed. 
Those noble trees must have much enhanced the arboreal 
grandeur of our primitive forest, particularly when im bloom, 
when the hymenopterous and dipterous and other tribes visit 
them in countless swarms, to sip, and sing their hymn of praise 
to Him who the rich banquet did provide. 
The spade and plough have changed the aspects of nature: 
those scenes will never return. 
I must visit our old hedges agam: here I find Pyrus tormi- 
nalis; it is plentifully dispersed over the whole of Wyre Forest, 
as also Rhamnus Frangula, Populus tremula, Pyrus Aucuparia, 
