158 THE ESSEX NATURALIST.
But there is another side to the matter. It is the people
who have put these conifers in the wrong place who are to be
blamed, not the conifers. When the same plants are seen grow-
ing to advantage, best of all in their native countries, we regard
them with entirely different feelings.
Take, for example, our three British conifers, Yew, Juniper,
and Scotch Fir. The old yews that form dark fringes along the
brows of the chalk hills in Surrey, and in the Thames valley,
or are scattered on the sides of deep combes, seem as much in
their right places as does the true deadly nightshade, which
often grows below them, or as all the array of bright chalk flowers,
rock-rose, wild thyme, squinancy-wort, and a host of others
decking the sunny turf beyond. The venerable churchyard
yews, although planted by man, have a dignity of their own and
a charm of association. Some learned people tell us that these
churchyard yews (or rather their predecessors) are survivals
of the ancient groves which the Druids used to plant round their
sacred spots, and the idea has much to commend it to our minds;
others say that yews were given the sanctuary of the church-
yard in order that enough of their tough and elastic timber
might be available to supply the long bows for which our Eng-
lish archers were famed. The derivation of yeoman from "yew-
man" is, perhaps, unjustifiable, but certain it is that yew-
wood was so prized in England that its exportation used to
be forbidden by law.
Juniper, like yew, is at home on chalk and limestone soils,
and thrives on slopes where it is exposed to strong light. The
artist might, perhaps, criticize a juniper-besprinkled hillside as
having a "spotty" appearance, but when one is close among
the plants their beauty and variety seems to grow. Some bushes
are low and compact, others are tall, slender and feathery, while
the deep green colour of their foliage is veiled with a bloom of
glaucous-blue, or is replaced in young shoots by rosy-lilac. The
varied growth does not appear to be associated with the fact
of the plant being either stamen-bearing or berry-bearing, but
the tallest junipers grow on the steepest slopes.
For our third native conifer, the "Scotch-Fir" or Scots pine
no championship is needful, for we all know the charm of a pine-
crowned hill, or of a pine-wood, with the music of the wind in
the tree tops, and its varied undergrowth. The Scotch-fir is