1912-1913-] Some Aspects of Plant- Life. 9 



also we find the tussock formations so well adapted to with- 

 stand exposure to drying winds. Shrubs and trees, when they 

 occur, present a peculiar and characteristic appearance. They 

 are stunted, gnarled, and bent away from the prevailing wind, 

 and the height of the trees in a wood adjoining the shore rises 

 as we leave the margin of the wood and go inland. 



Many of these sea-shore belts are not devoid of beauty 

 either in the plant-formations or in the individual plants, and 

 one may spend many a pleasant spring and summer day 

 admiring alternately the tawny or silvery glow of the sand, 

 the bright hardy flowers, the blue vault overhead, and the 

 deeper blue of the sea beneath. 



Passing inland, we may next consider an intermediate type 

 of region — moorland. Here are to be found a great variety 

 of plants characterised by reduced leaf- surfaces, such as 

 grasses and heaths. The larger growth-forms, shrubs and 

 trees, are represented sparsely or not at all. The humus acid 

 in the soil is unfavourable to the growth of seedlings, and 

 unless this acidity is artificially neutralised, an area which 

 has long been a moorland is apt to offer very effective resist- 

 ance to afforestation. 



In the glens, where lie the mountain-tracks of burns, we 

 often find adjoining the rather barren moorlands a surprising 

 wealth of vegetation. Sphagnums and other mosses, ferns, 

 liverworts, shrubs and trees, are often found crowded in a way 

 that reminds one of the tropics. Bleak and barren as many 

 moorlands are, they have a strange and subtle charm for those 

 who have been reared amid their free, open, breezy spaces 

 and scented gales, and who have trod their springy turf in 

 childhood. 



Nor are the moorlands by any means destitute of beautiful 

 forms, all the dearer because we do not meet them very often. 

 Here and there at intervals one comes on a group of willows, 

 vocal in springtime with the hum of bees among the rich 

 snowy catkins ; or we may see the broom and the gorse 

 afire with blossom, the fragrant bog-myrtle, the beautiful 

 grass of Parnassus, the broad cups and heart-shaped leaves 

 of the marsh-mallow, and banks of the scented thyme, best of 

 pillows for the tired wayfarer. There is plenty of life and 

 colour on a moor for any one who knows it well. 



