FOREST TREES AND FOREST SCENERY 
portions and assumes its most indi- 
vidual expression. There it mounts 
proudly upward, contending in height 
at wide intervals with sugar maples 
and tulip trees, its common associates 
in the forest. Its lofty crown may be 
seen at a distance, lifted conspicuously 
above the heads of its neighbors. Stand 
beneath it, however, and look up at its 
lower branches, and there is revealed 
an intricacy of branchwork and a tortu- 
osity of limb such as is unattained 
when it stands alone in the field. The 
boldness with which the white oak will 
sometimes throw out its limbs abruptly, 
and twist and writhe to the outermost 
twig, Ihave never seen quite equaled in 
the other oaks. The live oak, it must 
be admitted, is even more abrupt where 
the limb divides from the trunk, but 
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