Oak Tree Trunks and their Vestments 487 



OAK TREE TRUNKS AND THEIR VESTMENTS. 



The trunks of oak trees, as they stand unshaded in the light 

 of a winter's morning, are extremely beautiful. The silvered 

 grey of their stems is set off* by the clothing of green velvet 

 which covers their feet and ankles, and if we are favoured 

 with a gleam of February sun the harmonies of sober colour- 

 ing cannot fail to impress us with delight. We will pause a 

 few minutes to enjoy the general sense of beauty before pro- 

 ceeding to examine in detail the elements which combine to 

 confer it. No two trees are quite alike, although there is a 

 considerable sameness. In some the moss creeps up higher 

 than the foot and gives patches of subdued green high up the 

 bole. Others have but little, moss. Some are evenly rounded 

 and free from twigs, whilst others are covered over their 

 whole surface with groups of twigs in patches. Some of them 

 are almost smooth, but in others the cracks in the bark are 

 very deep and wide. Some have much more silver than 

 others, and the manner of its arrangement is also far from 

 being monotonous. Large flat patches of lichen, like out- 

 spread hands, or, to be more homely, like cheese plates, 

 interspersed with shaggy tufts of grey slate colour, are the 

 predominent features in some. Others present a more uniform 

 surface as of brightened lead, in which at a distance you hardly 

 detect any special structure. Nor are the warmer colours 

 wholly wanting, for here and there are patches of rich brown, 

 red or yellow, not the less beautiful because they are in most 

 instances the tints, it is to be feared, of death. 



Let us observe a little more closely. The warm colours 

 which we have noticed are seen to be usually portions of the 

 fronds of lichen which, as hinted, are dead. The green cloth- 

 ing of the feet is a delicate moss, the threads of which lie 

 smoothly in a dense mat, but all sloping downwards as if they 

 had been carefully combed and brushed by the fairies. This 

 moss is for the most part all of one kind, and it is not now in 



