Sept. 1, 1S6S.] 



UARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



203 



some near relatives in the Cypress, the Taxodium, 

 and the Wellingtonia. Of the first there is a speci- 

 men at Grenada, which was a celebrated tree before 

 the Moors were expelled from Spain by Ferdinand 

 and Isabella, towards the end of the fifteenth cen- 

 tury. A Taxodium distichum at Oaxaca, in Mexico, 

 which in 1829 measured 120 feet in height by 117 

 in circumference, is supposed to number forty 

 centuries. It sheltered Hernan Cortez and his 

 little band of adventurers under its wide-spreading 

 boughs about the year 1520. Among the gigantic 

 AVellingtonias (or Washingtonias, as our thin- 

 skinned cousins across the Atlantic will persist in 

 calling them, in spite of priority of title),— among 

 these mammoth trees of California, which, reach a 

 height of 300 or 400 feet, individuals have been 

 observed which must have witnessed 3,000 sum- 

 mers. Two other American trees, both. Brazilian, 

 have been noticed for their size and probably long 

 lease of life. The first is the Bertholetia, which sup- 

 plies the " Brazil nut " of commerce, specimens of 

 which, growing on the banks of the Amazons, have 

 been noticed with more than 1,000 distinct rings. 

 The other is the Hymensea, in connection with which 

 I transcribe the following passage from " Lindley's 

 Vegetable Kingdom." The size of the timber is 

 sometimes prodigious. The Locust-trees of the 

 west have long been celebrated for their gigantic 

 stature, and other species are the colossi of South 

 American forests. Martius represents a scene in 

 Brazil, where some trees of this kind occurred of 

 such enormous dimensions that fifteen Indians with 

 outstretched arms could only just embrace one of 

 them. At the bottom they were 81 feet in circum- 

 ference, and 60 feet where the boles became cylin- 

 drical. By counting the concentric rings of such 

 parts as were accessible, he arrived at the conclu- 

 sion that they were of the age of Homer, and 332 

 years old in the days of Pythagoras ; one estimate 

 indeed reduced their antiquity to 2,052 years, while 

 another carried it up to 4,101 ; from which he argues 

 that the trees cannot but date far beyond the time 

 of our Saviour. (P. 551, with an illustration.) My 

 remaining examples are European. Among them is a 

 Chestnut-tree growingon Mount Etna, and generally 

 known as Castucjna di cento cavalli, on account of 

 the immense space which it overshadows. It is ISO 

 feet in circumference, and cannot be less than one 

 thousand years old. A scarcely less celebrated 

 tree is growing at Tortworth, in Gloucestershire. 

 It was a tree "of mark " in the days of King John. 

 The great Lime-tree of Keustadt on the Kocher, 

 in Wiirtemburg, which as early as 1220 caused the 

 town to be known as Neustadt an der grossen 

 Linde, is believed to be not less than S00 years 

 old. Its stem is 38 feet in circumference. At 

 Worms, where there has been lately such a gather- 

 ing of crowned and ducal heads to do honour to the 



memory of the great Reformer Luther, is an elm 

 well known in Germany as the Luthcrbaum, which 

 measures 116 feet in height, with a stem 35 feet in 

 circumference, and has attained an age of not less 

 than 700 years. A less venerable member of the 

 vegetable kingdom, though still one that can look 

 back through a tolerable vista of years, is a Judas- 

 tree {Cercis siliqmstrum), in the Botanic Garden at 

 Montpelier ; it was planted in 1598, and conse- 

 quently numbers 270 years. Its trunk a short 

 time ago measured 12 feet round. In Science- 

 Gossip of last year, p. 163, 1 gave a short account 

 of a rose, which covers one end of the principal 

 church at Hildesheim, in Hanover. This remark- 

 able climber was well known as "a monument of 

 the past " as early as 1051. Tradition assigns its 

 origin to the year 814, under Louis the Pious, son 

 and successor of Charlemagne. Another tree with 

 a legendary history is a " Gospel Oak " in my own 

 neighbourhood in Hampshire, standing iu Avington 

 Park. If we are to believe the stories told of it, 

 and common there in every one's mouth, this " old, 

 old tree" was spared, at the earnest intercession 

 of certain monks residing at Winchester, solely on 

 account of its great age, w r hen a brother of William 

 the Conqueror levelled the whole of the surrounding 

 forest of Hampage, about A.n. 10/6. Eor some 

 sixteen centuries, therefore, it has defied the storms 

 of winter ; but the latter have conquered at last. 

 Ten years ago the old veteran made a final struggle 

 to show some signs of life ; and now it stands a 

 hollow trunk, with two or three bare and withered 

 arms, and only prevented from falling by a stout 

 band of iron, with which it is encircled. A mere 

 infant by the side of the Avington tree is the 

 Great Oak of Pleischwitz, near Breslau, whose age 

 is reckoned by Goppert at 700 years. It was blown 

 down in 1857 ; its fall being due to a hollow within 

 its huge stem, which could accommodate with ease 

 twenty-five or thirty persons standing upright. 



Dr. A. B. Reichenbach, in his " Vollstjindige 

 Naturgeschichte," says, "We know of Limes in 

 Lithuania with 815 annual rings, and a circum- 

 ference of 82 feet ; of Oaks in the Polish forests 

 in which one can count 710 perfect rings, and whose 

 stems measure 49 feet round. There are Elms whose 

 age is known to be above 350 years, Ivy 440, Maples 

 516, Larch 570, Orauges 640, Planes 720, Cedars 

 800, Walnut 900, Limes 1,000, Pines 1,200, Oaks 

 1,400, Olives 2,000." Erom these numerous examples 

 of extreme old age one may almost conclude that 

 (provided the seed from which they spring be sound, 

 the soil and climate favourable, and the means of 

 nourishment abundant) the existence of many plants 

 may be extended to an indefinite period, should they 

 be fortunate enough to escape accidents from with- 

 out. 



Clifton. W. W. Spiceb. 



