8 Armitt: Trees and Tree-Nesters. 
bravely spread its summer greenery; and the two together, 
inextricably intertwined, made such a confusion of down-leaning 
and up-stretching limbs and boughs and foliage as surely was 
never seen before. The Rowan was later cut out, and now lies, 
dislimbed, a monument of perverted growth. Its main stem, 
at the point a little above where it first cast off its seed-shell, 
and caught hold of the Oak with its little, grasping foot, 
measures over 14 yards round. Immediately above, it branches 
into five large, and almost equal arms; the one arm left 
measures 24 inches round. Immediately below, the main stem 
passes into what must have been a huge buried stem, or root, 
e fall of anarm. The Oak, behind and below, contains 
R. White. 
Old Oak, by 
the two Hollies and the Rowan y tines bed.—From a photograph by Mr. 
of girth little less than the above-ground stem. With this one 
root it seems to have struck down and pierced the heart of the 
Oak, reaching down and down, until it not only (in probability) 
reached the ground, but, swelling ever greater, occupied a 
great part of the Oak trunk, and finally caused its fracture. 
In this fact, the secret of these surprising growths is no doubt 
disclosed, for it is not possible that, seated upon the laps of the 
giants, they should attain the size they do, dependent only on 
the moisture of the air (damp though our woods are) and on the 
fraction of soil in which they first germinate. Their roots 
N aturalist, 
