Wistman's Wood
| Site of Special Scientific Interest | |
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 Location within Devon
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| Area of Search | Devon |
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| Grid reference | SX612774 |
| Coordinates | 50°34′37″N 3°57′40″W / 50.577°N 3.961°WCoordinates: 50°34′37″N 3°57′40″W / 50.577°N 3.961°W |
| Interest | Biological |
| Area | 3.5 hectares (0.03500 km2; 0.01351 sq mi) |
| Notification | 1964 |
| Location map | English Nature |
Wistman's Wood is one of only three remote high-altitude oakwoods on Dartmoor, Devon, England. (The other two are Black Tor Beare on the West Okement at SX565892 and Piles Copse on the River Erme at SX644620.)
It lies at an altitude of 380–410 metres in the valley of the West Dart River near Two Bridges, at grid reference SX612774.
The source of the Devonport Leat, at a weir on the West Dart River, is just north of the wood.
This is one of the highest oakwoods in Britain and, as an outstanding example of native upland oak woodland, was selected as a Site of Special Scientific Interest in 1964. It is also an NCR site and forms part of the Wistman’s Wood National Nature Reserve. The wood was also one of the primary reasons for selection of the Dartmoor Special Area of Conservation.
The wood is split into three main blocks (North, Middle and South Groves or Woods), which in total cover about 3.5 ha (9 acres). These occupy sheltered, south-west facing slopes, where a bank of large granite boulders ("clitter") is exposed, and pockets of acid, free-draining, brown earth soils have accumulated. It is owned by the Duchy of Cornwall and has been managed since 1961 under a nature reserve agreement with the Nature Conservancy Council, English Nature and Natural England. There is no active management, but many people visit the site on foot (mostly accessing the southern end of South Wood), and cattle and sheep have free access where the terrain permits, outside of a small fenced exclosure in South Wood.
The vegetation conforms mostly to W17a Quercus petraea-Betula pubescens-Dicranum majus woodland, Isothecium myosuroides-Diplophyllum albicans sub-community in the British National Vegetation Classification. The trees are mainly pedunculate oak, with occasional rowan, and a very few holly, hawthorn, hazel, and eared-willow. Tree branches are characteristically festooned with a variety of epiphytic mosses and lichens and, sometimes, by grazing-sensitive species such as bilberry and polypody. On the ground, boulders are usually covered by lichens and mossy patches – frequent species include Dicranum scoparium, Hypotrachyna laevigata, Rhytidiadelphus loreus and Sphaerophorus globosus – and, where soil has accumulated, patches of acid grassland grow with heath bedstraw, tormentil and sorrel. In places protected from livestock, grazing-sensitive plants such as wood sorrel, bilberry, wood rush and bramble occur. A fringe of bracken surrounds much of the wood, demarcating the extent of brown earth soils.
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