288 HISTORICAL NOTICE OF CELEBRATED TREES. [Sept. 



HISTORICAL NOTICE OF SOME CELEBRATED TREES. 



BY THE LATE PROFESSOK WALKER ARNOTT, LL.D. 



Part IV. — The Chestnut, Oriental Plane, and the Elm. 

 The Chestnut. 



THE chestnut tree {Castanca vesca) is generally understood to be a 

 native of Asia Minor, but it is abundant, at all events, as a 

 naturalized tree in the mountainous parts of the south of Europe. 

 The famous Castagno di cento cavalli, or chestnut of the hundred 

 horses, upon Mount Etna is probably the largest tree in Europe. 

 It is so called, according to tradition, because Jeanne of Aragon 

 and a hundred cavaliers of her suite took refuge under its branches 

 during a heavy shower, and were completely sheltered from the rain. 

 Brydone, who visited it in the year 1 770, has given a particular 

 description of it. He states it to have been 204 feet in circum- 

 ference, but later observers reduce these dimensions to 190 or even 

 180 feet. It has the appearance of live distinct trees; but whether 

 there were really as many trunks originally, or whether, as iu the 

 case of the Eortingall Yew, these trunks be merely portions of one 

 great one, it is difficult to judge. Most travellers, however, who 

 have examined it, incline to the opinion that the trunk is actually 

 formed by the union of five stems all springing from the same root. 

 A hut has been erected in the hollow space in its centre, with an 

 oven, in which the inhabitants dry the chestnuts and other fruits 

 which they wish to preserve for winter, using at times for fuel, pieces 

 cut with a hatchet from the interior of the tree. The chestnut 

 throws up shoots very readily from the root, and Philippi says it is 

 a general custom in Sicily to cut them down after they have attained 

 a considerable size, when the new stems which are thrown out from 

 the base shortly become trees again. This certainly furnishes a 

 very weighty reason for supposing such to be the structure of the 

 Castagno di cento cavalli; but there are other colossal chestnuts also 

 upon Mount Etna with rmdoubtedly single trunks. One of these, 

 known by the name of the " Chestnut of St. Agatha," is 70 feet in 

 circumference; another is the "Delia Nave," which is 64 feet; and 

 the third, called " Delia Navella," is 5 7 feet. Some general idea 

 of their age may perhaps be formed by a comparison with other 

 individuals whose history is better known, such as that at Sancerre, 

 described by Bosc, which, although only 33 feet in girth at 6 feet 

 from the ground, has been called the " great chestnut of Sancerre " 

 for 600 years. Though none of the English chestnuts rival the 



