Wistman's Wood, Dartmoor National Park, Devon, England
© Richard Garvey-Williams/Alam
Wistman's Wood, Devon, England
We’re on Dartmoor in Devon, where the twisted oak branches of Wistman’s Wood shelter some of the rarest plant life found in the United Kingdom. This ancient site is one of Britain’s highest oakwoods and is an example of a temperate rainforest, a rare habitat found along the Atlantic coastline. The mild and damp conditions here make it ideal for a number of scarce lichen, mosses and fungi. The wood is home to Horsehair lichen (Bryoria smithii) found at only two sites in Britain.
Wistman’s Wood sits at an altitude of between 380 metres and 435 metres above sea level. The most common type of trees, as seen in our homepage image, are moss and lichen-covered dwarf oaks, which twist between rocks and along the forest floor in places. It is thought that Wistman’s Wood is the ancestor of an ancient forest that covered much of Dartmoor around 7000 BCE. The oldest oaks here are thought to be between 400 and 500 years old.
Related Images
Leopard snoozing in a tree in Namibia
An old farm in the Shetland Islands, Scotland
Lake Dobson in Mount Field National Park of Tasmania
Water wheel in the Tashkurgan Grassland, Tashkurgan Tajik Autonomous County, Xinjiang, China
Sunset at Counts Point in West MacDonnell Ranges, Northern Territory, Australia
Wildflowers in bloom at Lost Dutchman State Park in Arizona
Australian sea lion (Neophoca cinerea) lying on a bed of sea grass in Carnac Island, Western Australia
Almond orchards in bloom, Sacramento Valley, California
Bing Today Images
