DBSORIPTIVE ENUMERATION OF TREES. 65 



In point of picturesque beauty I am not inclined 

 to rank tlie Beech much higher than in point of 

 utility. Its skeleton, compared with that of the 

 trees we have just examined, is very deficient. Its 

 trunk, we allow, is often highly picturesque. It 

 is studded with bold knobs and projections, and 

 has, sometimes, a sort of irregular fluting about it, 

 which is very characteristic. It has another 

 peculiarity, also, which is sometimes pleasing — 

 that of a number of stems arising from the root. 

 The bark, too, wears often a pleasant hue. It is 

 naturally of a dingy olive ; but it is always over- 

 spread, in patches, with a variety of mosses and 

 lichens, which are commonly of a lighter tint in 

 the upper parts, a,nd of a deep velvet-green 

 towards the root. Its smoothness, also, contrasts 

 agreeably with these rougher appendages. No 

 bark tempts the lover so much to make it the 

 depository of his mistress's name. It conveys a 

 happy emblem — 



' Crescent illoB ; crescetis amores.' * 



But, having praised the trunk, we can praise no 



* As the letters of our names increase on the Lark, so shall 

 our love. 



