SYCAMORES IN SCOTLAND, 155 



witli the ])ast. Little autlieiitie iiifonuation remnius rep,fir(liii<; 

 llic Ki|)]H'nr()Ss trre ; of its a,ne the Karl of Mar coiiiniuiiicated the 

 loll(i\vin_i; }iarlicular.s to Mr Moiiteath, author of the " Foresters' 

 (liiiilc": — "Mr John Stirlin«;' of Keir, who died in 17"»7, and 

 ni;id(' many inquiries of all the old ])eoj)le, from ei^^hty to ninety 

 years of a^c, which takes us hack to the rei<2,n of ('harles II. 

 near the liestoration, says, they uniformly declared that they 

 liave heard their fathers say that they never rememljer any- 

 thing ahout it, hut that it went li\ tlic name of tlic Mu,' tree of 

 Ki]i])('nross." 



Mr Slrutt in his ma[i,nilicent work on old trees, notices ii 

 sycamore at T.isliopton, in Pienfrew^^hire, opposite JJundjarton 

 Castle, wliich he figures in " Sylva Hcotica," puhlished in 18:!0, 

 iind of wliieh he reports the girth at the ground to he 20 feet at 

 that date, and to jje " a stately wide-spreading tree" a])ont 60 

 feet high. From recent inquiry no trace of this goodly speci- 

 men is now to lie found. Another remarkal)le sycamore of 

 which former notices have appeared, and wdiicli possessed a 

 curiosity peculiar to itself, was the tree at Calder House. This 

 tree, 1 )r Walker observes, " stands in the pleasure ground, on the 

 road from the house down to the church." On 4th October 1799 

 it measured 17 feet 7 inches at 4 feet from the ground. It was 

 called "Knox's Tree," and is known to liave Ijeen planted l)eforc 

 the Eeforniaticni. It was the tree to which for many years the 

 iron " jougs " of the church were fastened. It came gradually to 

 grow over them, and for a considerable time prior to 1799 they 

 had become completely enclosed in its trimk. At the place of 

 their imprisonment a huge protul)erance had formed on the south 

 side of the tree, and at a height of between 4 and 5 feet from 

 the griiund. From minute inc[uiries made aljout tW'O months 

 ago, no trace of this tree can n(nv l)e found, nor does there appear 

 to be any record preserved of the ultimate fate of this historical 

 tree or of its embedded relic. Others, in the lists preser\'ed by 

 Dr Walker and Sir T. 1). Lauder, liave also disappeared witliout 

 any record of the time or nature of their removal, a matter 

 mucli to be regretted in itself, the luon' so when it is con- 

 sidered that in most instances the only opportunity of accurately 

 fixing the age of the tree has thus been lost. 



P)Ut, wdiile we have cause to regret the disappearance of many 

 of these old recorded sycamores, it is a subject of gratification 

 to be able to point to and identify others which still exist, 

 and to contrast their dimensions now with those of the earlier 

 records. Many of these will be found in tlie columns of the 

 appendix to this report. Amongst the most noticeable of these, 

 is the sycamore at Cassillis in Ayrshire, wliich has, as far back as 

 the past tw^o centuries, gone by the name of the " Cassillis Dool 

 Tree." It stands about 40 feet fi'om the west end of Cassillis 



