1 39 
The Woodlands of England. 
ash-oak association, and form a considerably greater proportion of 
the whole shrub-layer. The same is true of the herbaceous species. 
The general list is mainly the same as that of the damp oakwood ; 
but such plants as Carex digitnta , Paris quadrifolia, Colchicum 
autumnale, Iris fcetidissima, Hclleborine media, H. purpurata, Viola 
Reiclienbachiana, Primula elatior (an East Anglian species) Litho- 
spermum purpureo-cceruleum (a south-western form), and Campamda 
Trachelium, which are almost or quite absent from woods of the oak 
type, are characteristic of the ash-oak association. Dog’s mercury 
(Mercurialis perennis) is much more generally dominant in the 
ground-vegetation, and other species such as Hypericum hirsutum, 
Vicia sylvatica, Aquilegia vulgaris, Rubus saxatilis, Campanula 
latifolia, Cardans heterophyllus, and Myosotis sylvatica are more 
generally abundant. 
While some ash-oakwoods ( e.g ., many of those on the Upper 
Greensand of East Devon and of the Isle of Wight) are left in an 
almost natural condition, felling and cutting of the undergrowth 
being far from heavy and planting quite occasional and sporadic, 
the great majority of the ash-oakwoods of the southern half of 
England are treated as copse with standard oaks, hazel occupying 
much the same position as it has in the damp oakwoods. In such 
copses, the ash and practically all the trees except the oak, as well 
as all the shrubs, are cut promiscuously when coppicing takes 
place ; and the result is copsewood of the oak-hazel type with a 
great variety and abundance of shrubs in addition to hazel. Such 
copsewoods are naturally indistinguishable by superficial observation 
from the oak-hazel copses belonging to the damp oak-association. 
Another factor tending to the assimilation of these two 
associations is the frequent poverty in lime of the surface soil to a 
depth of some inches, probably due to leaching. This, with the 
accumulation of humus, leads to the establishment on the floor of 
the wood of shallow-rooting plants not found on soils rich in lime. 
The more deeply rooting plants, such as the shrubs, are often, 
therefore, a better index than the herbaceous species of the essentia 
character of these woods. 
(B). Ashwood association. In the ash series pure ash- 
woods appear to bear somewhat the same altitudinal and edaphic 
relation to ash-oak woods that woods of Quercus sessiliflora bear to 
the damp woods of Q. Robur in the oak series; for just as damp 
woods of Q. Robur occur on damp, lowland, clayey and loamy soils, 
