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called it Dirpe, and the people of the country, the Withered Tree, 

 because from the date of the Passion of Our Lord, it has been 

 withered, and will remain so until a Prince of the West shall come 

 with the Christians to conquer the Holy Land : then " he shalle 

 do synge a masse undir that dry tree, and than the tree shalle 

 waxen grene and here bothe fruyt and leves." Fra Mauro, in his 

 map of the world, represents the Withered Tree in the middle of 

 Central Asia. It has been surmised that this Withered Tree is no 

 other than that alluded to by the Prophet Ezekiel (xvii., 24) : " And 

 all the trees of the field shall know that I the Lord have brought 

 down the high tree, have exalted the low tree, have dried up the 

 green tree." 



arbot Secco, or CTIje !!!JEit})£trt Crtr. Yxcm MaundeviU'z Travels. 



Sulpicius Severus relates that an abbot, in order to test the 

 patience of a novice, planted in the ground a branch of Styrax 

 *'that he chanced to have in his hand, and commanded the Novice 

 to water it every day with water to be obtained from the Nile, 

 which was two miles from the monastery. For two years the 

 novice obeyed his superior's injunction faithfully, going every day 

 to the banks of the river, and carrying back on his shoulder a 

 supply of Nile water wherewith to water the apparently lifeless 

 branch. At length, however, his steadfastness was rewarded, 

 for in the third year the branch miraculously shot out very fine 

 leaves, and afterwards produced flowers. The historian adds that 

 he saw in the monastery some slips of the same tree, which they 

 took delight to cultivate as a memento of what the Almighty had 

 been pleased to do to reward the obedience of his servant. 



Another miraculous tree is alluded to in Fleetwood's ' Curios-- 

 ties,' where, on the authority of Philostratus, the author describes 

 a certain talking Elm of Ethiopia, which, during a discussion heid 



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