The Woodlands of England

Abstract

INTRODUCTION. present paper is an attempt to deal, in a general way, with the character and distribution of the different types of natural and semi-natural woodland in England. It is a direct outcome of the work of the Central Committee for the Survey and Study of British Vegetation, formed at the end of 1904,* with the ohject of bringing into intimate association the various workers engaged in active study in the field of the nature and distribution of British vegetation.Before passing on to our special subject it will be useful to deal quite shortly with the method of vegetation study and representation adopted by the Committee in what they term " primary" survey of vegetation, and also with certain objections to this method of treating vegetation, which may perhaps be entertained in some quarters.The method of primary survey employed by the Committee was originally adapted by the late Robert Smith, of Dundee,^ from the system of cartography worked out by that acute plantgeographer. Professor Flahault of Montpellier,' whose pupil Smith was. A limited area of the country, either a natural physiographic region, or an area corresponding with one or more sheets of the " one-inch " Ordnance Survey map (1: 63,360), having been selected for survey, the different types of natural and semi-natural vegetation, and also the " artificial" types, such as farmland, plantations, and parks, occurring within the area, are distinguished ' New Phytologist, IV., 1905, p. 23. * Botanical Survey of Scotland : I., Edinburgh district. Scottish Geogr. Mag., 1900. * Ch. Flahault, Essai d'une carte botanique et forestidre, etc., Ann. de Geogr., 1891.hand, there are, of course, many plantations pure and simple which have been made on moorland, heath, grassland, or arable land, and which may of course consist of native or of exotic trees or of a mixture of the two. But between these two extremes, according to the conclusions of all the members of the British Vegetation Committee who have given any s'pecial attention to this subject, come the great majority of the British woods; which are neither virgin forest, nor plantations de novo, but are the lineal descendants, so to speak, of primitive woods. Such semi-natural woods, though often more or less planted, retain the essential features of natural woods as opposed to plantations, and without any reasonable doubt are characterised by many of the species which inhabited them in their original or virgin condition.' We may, in fact, construct a series leading from the one extreme of virgin forest to the other extreme of artificial plantation on open ground. Thus we may distinguish the following types:-(1). Primitive woodland which rejuvenates itself naturally, from self-sown seed or vegetatively, and in which felling has been, at the most, quite occasional and sporadic, and confined to isolated trees. Here we may place with confidence some of the woods of Quercus sessilifiora and of ash, which occur on the Pennines and in the Lake District.(2). Native woods in which there has been little or n...

Quercus L.

“…Moss, Rankin & Tansley (1910) recognized an 'Oak Birch series' of woodland communities of basedeficient soils which they subdivided into 'oakwood', 'oak-birch heath' and 'birch wood'. Communities.…”

Alley coppice—a new system with ancient roots

“…The remainder was left unmanaged and grew into broadleafdominated forests. This is especially true in England where large areas of former oak and hazel coppice (Moss et al 1910) were abandoned following the First and Second World Wars (Hopkins and Kirby 2007). There are, however, exceptions to the decreasing area coverage of coppice with standards.…”

Vegetation of the Peak District

“…Although the matter is a difficult one to settle, the balance of evidence seems to be against the view that the beech is native in Britain so far north as Derbyshire. The tree, however, is indigenous in the south of England, where it forms beech woods (see Moss, Rankin, and Tansley, 1910), especially on the escarpments of the Chalk and on the Greensand.…”

“…The various plant associations which are known to occur among British woodlands are summarised below (cf. Moss, Rankin, and Tansley, 1910) :…”