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. But wherever the soil has been enriched by the
decomposition of the leaves of the birch the battle begins. The birch
still flourishes on the borders of lakes and other marshy places, where
its enemy cannot exist.
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