ILLUSTRATIONS (12). LONGEVITY OF THE YEW TREE. 273 



64 feet in height whose diameter was 36 feet," this dis- 

 proportion between thickness and height must not be assumed 

 to be general. " Very old trees," says the learned traveller, 

 Peters, " lose their crowns by gradual decay, while they 

 continue to increase in circumference. On the eastern coast 

 of Africa one not unfrequently meets with trees having a 

 diameter of more than 10 feet which reach the height of 

 nearly 70 feet." 



While therefore the bold calculations of Adanson and 

 Perrottet assign to the Adansonias measured by them, an age of 

 5150 or even 6000 years, which would make them coeval with 

 the builders of the Pyramids, or even with Menes, and would 

 place them in an epoch when the Southern Cross was still visible 

 in Northern Germany;* the more certain estimations yielded 

 by annular rings, and by the relation found to exist between 

 the thickness of the layer of wood and the duration of growth, 

 give us, on the other hand, shorter periods for our tem- 

 perate northern zone. Decandolle finds that of all Euro- 

 pean species of trees, the yew attains the greatest age ; and 

 according to his calculations, 30 centuries must be assigned 

 as the age of the Taxus baccata of Braburn in Kent, from 25 

 to 26 to the Scotch yew of Fortingal, and 14^ and 12 re- 

 spectively to those of Crowhurst in Surrey and Bipon (Foun- 

 tains Abbey) in Yorkshire.! Endlicher remarks that " another 

 yew-tree in the churchyard of Grasford, North Wales, which 

 measures more than 50 feet in girth below the branches, is 

 more than 1400 years old, whilst one in Derbyshire is esti- 

 mated at 2096 years. In Lithuania linden trees have been 

 felled which measured 87 feet round, and in which 815 

 annular rings have been counted." j In the tenrperate zone 

 of the southern hemisphere some species of the Eucalyptus 

 attain an enormous girth, and as they at the same time attain 

 a height of nearly 250 feet, they afford a singular contrast to 

 our yew trees, which are colossal only in thickness. Mr. Back- 

 house found in Emu Bay, on the shore of Van Diemen's Land, 



* Cosmos, vol. ii. p. 662. (Bohn's Edition.) 



f Decandolle, de la Longevite des Arbres, p. 65. Fine engravings 

 of the venerable yew at Fortingal, Fountains Abbey, Ankerwyke, &c, 

 will be found in Strutt's magnificent work on forest trees. A very full 

 account of the Yew-tree, with engravings, will also be found in Loudon's 

 Arboretum Britannicum. — En. 



% Endlicher, Grundziige der Botanih, s. 399. 



T 



