WILD HONEYSUCKLE 53 



times leaping away from each other, and then again 

 coming together and twining rope-fashion. The lowest 

 branch of the Oak must be twelve feet from the ground, 

 and I do not know how the climber may have reached 

 it, for it has only twined upon itself, not upon the tree, 

 but there may have been smaller branches, since dead 

 and fallen, that helped it to rise. 



The Honeysuckle does not seem to be willing to 

 twine round anything of large diameter ; I never see 

 it about trunks whose thickness is more than ten 

 inches or thereabouts, and when it does coil about an 

 Oak of that size, the tree, then coated with its strong 

 rough bark, has enough rending power as it expands 

 to burst its bonds and be free. 



But smaller trees often suffer a good deal from 

 the close constriction of the woody creeper. For the 

 Honeysuckle is a true tree, and its long stems are of 

 true wood, of a quality both hard and tough, and all 

 the tougher because the fibres of the individual stems 

 are twisted like a rope. In the copse part of my own 

 ground there are many examples — young trees badly 

 hurt and scarred for life. One young Beech, whose 

 stem is only four inches through, has thrown out thick 

 swellings that look like a couple of close coils of a 

 great python, and that more than double its diameter 

 at the point of injury. The living Honeysuckle is no 

 longer there, but I suspect that some of its hard wood is 

 enclosed within the swollen twists, and that throughout 

 its lifetime the tree will bear the mark of the early injury. 



