Leaves may still cling to the newest growths of underwood long after
the older underwood is gaunt and bare. The sap, perhaps, is fresher
and more vigorous in the younger wood--prolonging the period of
ripening--and the new buds have not pushed out far enough to dislodge
the leaves. In coppices that have been thinned one sees how unusually
big, and how strong and enduring, are the leaves on the shoots of
tree-stumps--as though the whole energy of what was once a tree is
concentrated in the few shoots and leaves. Where hedges are clipped,
dead leaves remain in place far into the winter, possibly because,
owing to injury, the growth is retarded of those layers of cork which
form to assist the buds in dislodging the worn-out leaves. On the
sides of rides trimmed annually the leaves form quite a screen in late
autumn--to which one sportsman put down his many misses at rabbits,
and ordered his keepers to walk along every ride and pick off all the
leaves that remained. The shoots of underwood that has been cut always
grow more luxuriantly in a hot, dry summer than in a rainy one; every
copse-worker will tell you this is the case, though we have not come
across one who could solve the riddle.
* * * * *