THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 495 



From the times of antiquity the luxuriant growth of the 

 plane-trees on the banks of the Bosphorus and the Black 

 Sea has been the subject of remark, and the botanists of our 

 day have proved that what our forefathers said was in no 

 way exaggerated. 



Men were almost inclined to disbelieve the account of 

 Pliny, who states that in his time there was in Lycia a stout 

 thriving plane-tree, in the trunk of which was seen a vast 

 grotto eighty-one feet in circumference, the whole extent 

 of which had been tapestried by nature with a green and 

 velvety hanging of moss. Licinius Mutianus, governor of 

 the province, charmed with the delicious coolness of this 

 rural hall, gave a supper in it to eighteen guests from his 

 suite. After the orgy they transformed the scene of their 

 festivity into a dormitory, and comfortably passed the night 

 there. 



This fact has been fully confirmed by modern travellers. 

 De Candolle relates that, according to one of them, there 

 still exists in the neighborhood of Constantinople an enor- 

 mous lime-tree, the trunk of which is quite as ample as that 

 of which we have been speaking. It is 150 feet in circum- 

 ference, and also presents a cavity eighty feet in circuit. 



Ray, the celebrated English botanist and geologist, speaks 

 of an oak, existing in his time in Germany, which was of 

 such dimensions that it had been transformed into a citadel. 

 To confine ourselves more strictly to the truth, let us just 

 say that its interior served as a guard-house. We may here 

 mention another tree of the same kind, still growing in Nor- 

 mandy, and which, in contrast to the other, has been conse- 

 crated to piety. This is the chapel-oak of Allouville, in 



