766 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of the Hesperides; for the ancients tried to make old Atlas and his 

 daughters inhabitants of our islands. To moderns this tree is chiefly 

 remarkable on account of its exceedingly slow growth and the very 

 great age which it attains. A specimen at Orotava was estimated 

 by Humboldt and others to be from six thousand to ten thousand 

 years old. This individual was hollow, and had been an object of 

 veneration to the Guanchees since immemorial times; their Spanish 

 conquerors turned it into a chapel. It was blown down in 1868, but 



J 111-; I>i;a(,c)X Thkk (I'riU'iXi 



■/) AT l,A(.rNA, Tk_m;i:iffe. 



numerous existing trees of much smaller size are still held to have 

 an age of from two thousand to four thousand years. 



There is an oak which seems to be thoroughly naturalized in a few 

 places, and a silver-leaved poplar has monopolized whole valley sides. 

 IN'ear the aqueducts and brooks buttercups, vetches, flax, clover, catch- 

 fly, sweet clover, sorrel, and plantago abound. In the drier bar- 

 rancos grows an acacia with globular, orange-colored balls of sweet- 

 scented flowers, also a native sage and the tamarisk tree, with an 

 occasional sturdy castor-oil plant. Very rarely one is fortunate 

 enough to meet with a specimen of a species of juniper formerly 

 forming great woods, now almost extinct on the islands. The cul- 

 tivated fields and the roadsides have a flora of their own. Among 

 the beans planted as fodder, the white-flowered sweet pea grows luxu- 

 riantly, sweetening the air. Vetches, geraniums, morning-glories, 



