The latter loses its branches at the touch of the beech, and devotes all its strength to the upper part where it towers above the beech.

It may live long in this way, but it succumbs ultimately in the fight--of old age if of nothing else, for the life of the birch in Denmark is shorter than that of the beech.

The writer believes that light (or rather shade) is the cause of the superiority of the latter, for it has a greater development of its branches than the birch, which is more open and thus allows the rays of the sun to pass through to the soil below, while the tufted, bushy top of the beech preserves a deep shade at its base.

Hardly any young plants can grow under the beech except its own shoots; and while the beech can nourish under the shade of the birch, the latter dies immediately under the beech.

The birch has only been saved from total extermination by the facts that it had possession of the Danish forests long before the beech ever reached the country, and that certain districts are unfavourable to the growth of the latter.