CHAP. III. CONTINENT OF EUROPE. 147 
exceptions. Supposing this to be the case, the ligneous flora of the British 
Isles, added to the species above enumerated, will give to Germany a flora of 
upwards of 360 species of indigenous trees and shrubs. 
The introduction of foreign trees and shrubs into Germany, subsequently to 
the time of the Romans, and to that of the foundation of religious corpora- 
tions, appears to have commenced with the establishment of botanic gardens. 
The first tree of note, of the introduction of which we have any record, is the 
horsechestnut, which, according to Beckmann (Hist. of Invent., &c.), was 
brought to Vienna by the botanist Clusius, somewhere about 1576. In Clu- 
sius’s Rariorum Plantarum, &c., published in 1601, he states that in 1581 the 
horsechestnut was considered as a botanical rarity, but that in 1588 there was 
a tree at Vienna which had been brought there twelve years before, but which 
had not then produced bloom. M. Bon de Saint-Hilaire (Mémoire sur les 
Marrons d’ Inde), however, says that the horsechestnut passed from the moun- 
tains of Thibet to England in 1550, and thence to Vienna in 1588. The first 
plant of Robinia Pseud-Acacia was brought to Vienna in 1696 ; and the remains 
of it are still living in the courtyard of the palace formerly occupied by Count 
Fries in the Place Joseph, and now belonging to Baron Sina. The ground 
on which this tree stands was formerly part of the garden of a convent of 
nuns, founded by the widow of Charles IX. of France, whose high-steward 
was the celebrated Augerius, Baron de Burbeck, the friend of Clusius. The 
oldest foreign trees in Austria are at Schdnbrunn, and consist chiefly of tulip 
trees, platanus, acers, juglans, robinias, and crategus, planted about the 
middle of the last century, or earlier. There is a more complete collection, 
though not quite so old, in the grounds of Prince Lichtenstein at Eisgrub, 
near Nikolsburg. About the middle of the last century, this nobleman sent 
M. van der Schott, a German, to North America; who collected there an 
immense quantity of seeds, which were sown on the prince’s estates in Austria, 
Moravia, and Bohemia, and now form immense forests. 
One of the oldest exotic trees in Germany is a 7'huja occidentalis, near the 
old castle of Heidelberg, a drawing of which has been sent us by M. Ritter of 
Pesth, and which must have been planted when the grounds round the castle 
were laying out by Solomon Caus, as it bears a ticket stating that it was 
placed there in 1618. Caus began to plant the castle garden in 1615. (Metz- 
ger’s Castle of Heidelberg, p.60.) 'This venerable tree is at present about 
30 ft. high, with a naked trunk leaning to one side, and a very few branches 
at top. In the gardens of this castle there are two large yew trees, which 
were planted in 1650, and some cornelian cherry trees (Cérnus mas), which 
were brought from Neuburg on the Danube in 1769. There are also some 
very old lime trees. The Margraves of Baden have from the earliest ages 
been much attached to planting and gardening. In the grounds of the ancient 
grand-ducal palace of Durlach near Carlsruhe, which was the residence of this 
family for many centuries, and a part of the palace walls of which are sup- 
posed to be as old as the time of the Romans, there is an ash 140 ft. high, 
and 19 ft. in circumference at one foot from the ground. A board fixed to 
the trunk states that it was 300 years old in 1802. As the ash is not indi- 
genous in the neighbourhood, this ash is, probably, the oldest planted tree in 
Germany. At Durlach, also, there are the remains of an avenue of chestnuts : 
the trunks are hollow, but some of them are 120 ft. high and 15 ft. in cireum- 
ference : they are thought to have been planted about the end of the sixteenth 
century. The road from Durlach to Carlsruhe is through an avenue of Lom- 
bardy poplars, the oldest and the highest in Germany ; none of the trees are 
under 90 ft. high, and many of them are above 120ft. Nothing of the kind 
can be more sublime. The worthy old Margrave Charles, the first Grand- 
Duke of Baden, who died about 1805, and one of his sons yet alive, the 
Margrave William of Baden, may be reckoned amongst the most zealous pro- 
moters of the planting of foreign trees and shrubs ; in proof of which, we need 
a refer to the parks at Carlsruhe, Schwetzingen, Mannheim, and Baden 
aden, 
