1180 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



along the roads and paths which lead to the nine entrances to the forest, but always 

 singly or in lines, apparently for ornament alone. The oldest of these trees are 

 still, with one or two exceptions, quite sound, and although difficult to measure on 

 account of their being crowded by other trees, I was able to make the following 

 measurements : 



i. A tree near the hotel, just below the road leading to the Coimbra gate, about 

 no ft. by 1 1 ft. 2 in., with a clean bole about 40 ft. high. 



2. A tree which M. Lacerda, the director of the domain, considers the largest 

 of all, is 85 to 90 ft. high, with a bole of 30 ft., 15 ft. 10 in. in girth, and situated just 

 below the small chapel of San Jose. 



3. A little above this is a tree, perhaps 100 ft. high or possibly more, with a 

 straight clean bole 66 ft. by 1 2 ft. 8 in. 



4. Above the avenue of Mosteiro a very tall fine tree, possibly taller than 

 No. 1, but I could not measure it. 



5. A little way down towards the water-staircase a very large hollow tree, the 

 only one which seems to be decayed, measured 15 ft. 10 in. in girth. 



There is much variation in the form and habit of this cypress according to the 

 situation ; it seems capable of growing in fairly dense shade, and when crowded 

 by other trees cleans its trunk well. Some fine young trees, said to be about fifty 

 years old, in the deep moist hollow called the Valle dos Abietos, measured about 

 90 ft. high by 4 to 5 ft. in girth, and were clean to half their height. I have no 

 doubt that these, in the course of another fifty years or so, will attain a greater 

 height than any of the old ones, and may eventually equal, if not surpass, the splendid 

 young silver firs which are growing in the same valley ; whose seedlings come 

 up as thickly and evenly as I have ever seen them do in their native country. 

 The cypress, though it sows itself freely, requires more light when young, and 

 reproduces best where a shallow bed of leaf-mould is partially exposed to the 

 sun. In such places I found plenty of seedlings which seemed to have an excellent 

 root system, and I was able to transplant some of them to the garden of Baron 

 Soutelinho (Mr. A. Tait), of Oporto, and to send some small ones home by post. 



Owing to the kindness of Senhor Lacerda I have received a fine plank and 

 section of the wood, cut from a tree which shows 160 annual rings on a radius 

 of 18 in. ; it appears to be very similar to the wood of Cupressus sempervirens. 

 This account 1 has been read by Prof. Henriques, who informs me that the 

 mountain of Bussaco is on the inferior Silurian formation. With regard to the date 

 of its introduction, he says that it must certainly have existed before 1634, when it 

 was mentioned in a poem called Soledades de Bussaco. When the mountain was 

 acquired by the Trappists from the monks of Vacarica in 1626, there was already 

 a great variety of trees, forming a dense forest. The chapel of San Jose, near which 

 the largest tree grows, was founded in 1644, and the Chronicles of the Carmelite 

 (cap. xx. p. no), published in 1721, speaking of this chapel, says that near it is 

 found the first cypress, progenitor of all the others in the forest. In 1689 Tourne- 



1 M. Jacques L. de Vilmorin, in Bull. Soc. Dend. France, 1907, p. 49, gives an interesting account of the forest of 

 Bussaco, which he visited in 1906. 



