>90 TUSTOmCAL NOTICE OF CELEBRATED TREES. [Sept. 



will in time become similarly incorporated. Pliny's Lycian Plane 

 may have also had such an origin. 



The Elm. 



The elm {Ulmus campestris) attains a large size, and lives to a 

 great age. Mention is made of one planted by Henry IV. of France, 

 which was standing at the Luxembourg at the commencement of 

 the French Eevolution. One at the upper end of Church Lane, 

 Chelsea, said to have been planted by Queen Elizabeth, was felled 

 in 1745. It was 13 feet in circumference at the bottom, and 110 

 feet high. Supposing it were planted about 1570, its age would be 

 175 years, and its annual average increase in diameter about 3^ 

 lines. Piffe's elm, near the Biddington oak, in the vale of Glou- 

 cester, was in 1783 about 80 feet high, and the smallest girth of 

 the principal trunk was 16 feet. From the planting of Sir Francis 

 Bacon's elms in Gray's Inn Walks in 1600, and their decay about 

 1720, one would be disposed to assign the healthy period of the 

 elm in this country to be about 120 years. But De CandoUe 

 mentions one at Merges which fell down in 1827, probably under- 

 mined by the waters of the neighbouring Lake of Geneva. It was 

 perfectly healthy, and had been growing in a favourable situation. 

 A section of the trunk above the root showed its age to be 335 

 years; at the same place the diameter was 16 feet 4^ inches 

 English, and immediately below the branches, at 12 feet from the 

 ground, it was 29-|^ in circumference; of five immense branches one 

 was 15 feet 9 inches English in girth. 



Of American elms (a different species, however, from any of the 

 European ones) the most noted is that upon Boston Common. Its 

 girth at 5 feet from the ground (in 1844) was 16 feet 1 inch; at 

 the height of 3 feet it measures 17 feet 11 inches, and near the 

 earth 23 feet 6 inches. It is said to have been planted in 1670 by 

 Capt. Daniel Hendman, then a schoolmaster in Boston, and who after- 

 wards joined the artillery. It is therefore (1846) about 175 years old. 

 In an old map of Boston, published in 1720, the elm is delineated 

 as a large tree. In 1800 there was a great hollow in it, large 

 enough for a boy to hide himself in; but the cavity was then cleared 

 of its rotten wood, and filled with a composition of lime, rubbish 

 from old buildings, and clay. There is now no appearance of the 

 hollow, and the tree is apparently as flourishing as ever. The 

 aspinwall elm in Brooklyn is also of considerable size. It was 

 planted in 1656; and in 1837, when 181 years old, measured 

 16 feet 8 inches at 5 feet from the ground, and 26 feet 5 inches 

 close to the surface. These give the annual increase of growth of 

 the American elm very accurately, at 4x lines in diameter. 



