216 



ALNUS. 



wavy or obtuse lobed on the margin, serrated, and some- 

 what glutinous, downy at the branching of the veins be- 

 neath. 



The Alder is one of 

 the commonest of our 

 indigenous trees, being 

 found upon the mar- 

 gins of all our rivers 

 and streams, as well as 

 in damp and marshy 

 ground, and even in 

 morasses and swamps 

 of the wettest descrip- 

 tion. It is only, how- 

 ever, where the soil is 

 good and at the same 

 time well watered, but 

 not actually swampy, 



that it attains a large timber-like size ; under such 

 favourable circumstances it often reaches a height of 

 fifty or sixty feet, with a trunk of many feet in cir- 

 cumference ; of such a magnitude are the fine spe- 

 cimens still existing in the bishop's park at Auckland 

 Castle, and which we find mentioned in Gilpin's " Fo- 

 rest Scenery, 11 and such are many of those which his 

 accomplished editor, Sir T. Dick Lauder, describes as 

 growing upon the banks of the Findhorn and its tribu- 

 taries, and to these might be added many others which 

 we have met with in our excursions in Scotland and 

 in the north of England. In other situations less con- 

 genial to its full developement, whether from an excess 

 of moisture as in swamps, or on the contrary where 

 the ground is porous and the routs cannot retain the 



