92 ESSAYS. 
longevity. A different conclusion might, indeed, be drawn 
from the account of an enormous Plane in the valley of Bou- 
youdereh, near Constantinople, described by Olivier, Dr. 
Walsh, and others; the trunk of which is one hundred and 
fifty feet in girth, with a central hollow of eighty feet in cir- 
cumference. But the recent observations of an excellent 
scientific observer, Mr. Webb, leave no doubt that this mon- 
ster-trunk is formed by the junction of several original trees, 
planted in close proximity.! Along the shores of the Bos- 
phorus there are many groups of younger Planes, which, for 
their shade, have been designedly planted in a narrow circle, 
and their trunks will in time become similarly incorporated. 
Pliny’s Lycian Plane, with a cavity of eighty-one feet in cir- 
cumference, in which the consul Licinius Mutianus used to 
lodge with a suite of eighteen persons, may have had such an 
origin. 
We next notice the Chestnuts, for the purpose of disposing 
of an analogous case of pseudo-longevity ; that of the famous 
“ Castagno di cento cavalli”; so named from the somewhat 
apocryphal tradition, that 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. 
According to Brydone, who visited it in the year 1770, the 
trunk, or rather trunks, —for it then had the appearance of 
five distinct trees, — measured two hundred and four feet in 
circumference; but later and more trustworthy observers 
reduce these dimensions to one hundred and eighty or one 
hundred and ninety feet. A hut has been erected in the 
hollow space, 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 separation of a large hollow 
1 Moquin-Tandon, “Teratologie Végétale,” p. 290. — By the way, al- 
though De Candolle was not at the time apprised of the real nature of 
this Plane, yet he was far too cautious a reasoner to estimate its age at 
2000 years, as Mr. Nuttall has inadvertently stated (Sylva, i. p. 50). 
Whoever will read the whole paragraph in the “ Physiologie Végétale,” 
ii. p. 994, will perceive that it will by no means bear that construction. 
