56 gflpim's forest scenery. 



them mucli as objects of beauty. They may be 

 whimsical and curious ; but, in my opinion, the 

 roots and veins of wood and stone, are much 

 more beautiful when they are wreathed in 

 different fantastic forms, than when they seem 

 to aim at any exact figures. In the former case 

 they leave the imagination at liberty to play 

 among them, which is always a pleasing exercise 

 to it : in the latter, they are, at best, awkward 

 and unnatural likenesses, which often disgust the 

 picturesque eye, and always please it less than 

 following its own fancy and picking out re- 

 semblances of its own. 



Another curiosity in the Ash, which is likewise 

 of the picturesque kind, is a sort of excrescence, 

 which is sometimes found on a leading branch, 

 called a wreathed fascia. The fasciated branch 

 is twisted and curled in a very beautiful form ; 

 which form it probably takes, as Dr. Plot sup- 

 poses, from too quick an ascent of the sap :* or, 

 as other naturalists imagine, from the puncture 

 of some insect in the tender twig, Avhich diverts 



* See Nat. Hist. Oxf., ch. vi. sec. 82. , 



