14 



THE OAK. 



these that the trees composing "Wistman's Wood 

 have chosen to fix their habitations — a colony of 

 patriarchs in a wilderness. The wood itself forms 

 a ragged and interrupted belt, of about half a mile 

 in length, including some straggling trees, sepa- 

 rated at long intervals. The best w^ay of ap- 

 proaching it is from above, for by so doing one 

 may without difficulty obtain a pretty good view 

 of the whole at once, and plunge in among the 

 trees at pleasure. The trees are all Oaks, from 

 ten to fourteen feet high, gnarled, knotted, and 

 t\\dsted even beyond the usual characteristic of 

 that tree. The trunks vary from two to five feet 

 in circumference. One which was measured con- 

 sisted of three trunks, branched just above the 

 base, each bole being about three feet in circum- 

 ference. But by far the strangest pecuharity is, 

 that all the branches, with the exception (and this 

 not always) of the extreme spires, are matted with 

 deep beds of moss, principally Anomodon curti- 

 pendulum, in fine fructification. Some idea of 

 the denseness of this extraordinary integument 

 may be formed from the fact that the moss is, in 

 most cases, from ten to twelve inches in thickness, 

 when the diameter of the branch does not exceed 

 an inch and a half. It seems very probable that 

 the superincumbent weight may operate in pro- 

 ducing the depressed character of growth: certain 

 it is, that a single Holly-tree, near the centre of 

 the wood, which is free from parasites, has at- 

 tained the height of twenty feet, and towers above 

 his pigmy companions, like some tall pine in a 

 wood of ordinary growth. When first we saw tliis 

 tree, indeed, having nothing to compare it with of 

 definite size and shape but the suiTounding Oaks, 



