Conifers 
climates it is exceedingly difficult to find any natural 
pine forest. If only a few more proprietors had 
followed the noble example set by Prince Ad. von 
Schwarzenburg, who left a will ordering that “3200 
yoke should be preserved for ever,” so that the original 
Forest of Bohemia could be understood by succeeding 
generations! The forest which we owe to his self- 
denying ordinance consists of firs, silver firs,and beeches, 
as well as of sycamore, elm, alder, birches, and willows. 
Here may be the huge mouldering trunks of dead 
giants, from whose prostrate stems spring rows of little 
shoots, patiently waiting for a chance to develop. The 
soil is everywhere covered over with green feathery 
mosses, in which are growing hundreds of little sup- 
pressed youngsters (some perhaps 120 to 160 years 
old, though not more than 7 inches in diameter). 
When some venerable patriarch does eventually fall, 
then these small ones get their chance and quickly 
grow up towards the light, for which they have been so 
long patiently waiting. 
In those Highland woods which have been in exist- 
ence for at least a century, one can realise up to a cer- 
tain point the extraordinary charm of a natural forest, 
The great trees are covered with rare and curious 
lichens. The ground is broken, rocky, and uneven, but 
over it all, over boulders and dead trunks, there is 
thrown a most wonderful tapestry of feathery mosses, 
with here and there blaeberries, Trientalis, Veronica 
officinalis, dwarf cornel, brambles, and bracken, with 
splendid male ferns and lady ferns. The bewildering 
variety of this ground flora clearly depends upon the 
amount of light which penetrates through the branches. 
But the influences at work are of the most compli- 
cated character. The trees are all competing for light ; 
should a leading shoot be broken as by a playful 
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