268 BRITISH PLANTS 



seedlings, saplings, and great aged individuals are all 

 mixed together, competing freely with one another for 

 room and light. In plantations it is different ; many, if 

 not all, of the trees are of the same age ; aliens are common 

 — e.g., chestnuts, sycamores, elms, and firs — -and trees not 

 common to the district or soil — e.g., pine in most parts of 

 the country, and the beech in the west ; and if the planta- 

 tion is recent the ground- vegetation is not typically wood- 

 land at all. In the course of time, however, these out- 

 of-place inhabitants of the undergrowth disappear, and 

 true woodland forms take their place. 



Copses. 



Cutting or coppicing also modifies woods, and most 

 of our woods are cut periodically, either gradually or 

 en masse. In woods trees are generally felled one here 

 and one there, and new saplings put in their place. In 

 copses, on the other hand, the whole wood is periodically 

 cut down, and then allowed to regenerate itself from the 

 boles left in the ground. In the latter case the shade of 

 the wood is banished, and with it most of the shade- 

 loving woodland plants. Sun-loving forms come in from 

 the adjacent pastures and heaths, and maintain their 

 position until a new wood springs up from the ruins of 

 the old, and increasing shade drives them out. 



From what we have said, it is clear that although 

 natural woods are not common in this country, many 

 artificial woods — especially those which have been derived 

 from ancient ones, or old plantations of native trees, and 

 even coppiced woods before the trees are cut — stand very 

 near natural woods, and give us a gobd idea of what the 

 primitive woodland-vegetation of these islands was like. 



Thickets. 



In rough, uncultivated, and especially hilly places, and 

 on the rocky sides of river-valleys, bushes and shrubs 

 become more abundant than trees. In these places the 

 soil is very shallow, and tree-growth is often dwarfed or 

 stopped altogether. The most abundant bush in this 

 country is the hazel, which in former times was extensively 

 planted in woods for economic purposes, especially among 

 oaks and ashes, which were periodically coppiced. 



