Richmond Hill Plantation

On the other side, at fifty feet distant were rows of old live oak trees, their branches and twigs slightly hung with a delicate fringe of gray moss, and their dark, shining, green foliage meeting and intermingling naturally but densely overhead. The sunlight streamed through and played aslant the lustrous leaves and waving, fluttering, quivering, palpitating, pendulous moss: the arch was low and broad; the trunks were huge and gnarled, and there was a heavy groining of strong, dark, rough, knotty branches. I stopped my horse, bowed my head, and held my breath. I have hardly in all my life seen anything so impressively grand and beautiful. Frederick Law Olmsted Sr