FOREST TREES AND FOREST SCENERY 
“When we consider its great and 
surpassing utility and beauty, we are 
fully disposed to concede it the first 
rank among the denizens of the forest. 
Springing up with a noble trunk, and 
stretching out its broad limbs over the 
soil, 
‘These monarchs of the wood, 
Dark, gnarled, centennial oaks,’ 
seem proudly to bid defiance to time; 
and while generations of man appear 
and disappear, they withstand the 
storms of a thousand winters, and seem 
only to grow more venerable and 
majestic.” 
It would be difficult to say whether 
Downing had any particular species of 
oak in mind when he wrote these words. 
The common white oak and the several 
species of red and black oak possess in 
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