/. 



[Reprinted from THE PLANT WORLD, Vol. n, No. 8, May, 1899]. 



HISTORIC TREES OF NORTH AMERICA. 

 By W. W. Rowlee. 



I. THE WASHINGTON ELM. 



BEYOND doubt the most famous tree in America is the Washing- 

 ton Elm. It stands at the corner of Garden and Mason 

 streets nearly opposite the middle of the west side of the 

 Common in Old Cambridge. New Englanders have always 

 been proud of their elms, many of which have been connected with 

 stirring historical events, but none of them has connected with it so 

 much to arouse patriotic enthusiasm as the subject of our sketch. 



It is said that before the Revolution audiences gathered under 

 this or a neighboring elm to listen to popular religious and patriotic 

 addresses. The crowning glory in the life of the old elm came, how- 

 ever, when under its branches, Washington took command of the Revo- 

 lutionary army. The army was encamped in the common, the spirit 

 of Bunker Hill burned in every heart, yet we read that Washington, 

 even at this time, found great trials with which to contend. It is 

 said he had a platform built among the branches of the tree, and no 

 doubt he there meditated upon the plans of campaign and the out- 

 come of the war. Just across the river Charles, scarce five miles 

 away, under another elm in Boston Common, the English soldiers 

 were encamped. We may suspect that the national banner was 

 brought forth to fire the enthusiasm of the patriot army. Tradition 

 says that the stars and stripes, which we all revere so much, were 

 first flung to the breeze near the Washington Elm. 



Oliver Wendell Holmes, whose pen was always so apt in express- 

 ing true sentiment, says of the tree: "When I first rolled my infant 

 eyes toward the glare of the western sky as it looked through the 

 windows of my birthchamber, four green masses, each of them a 

 forest waving on a single stem, printed themselves on my retina 

 through my blinking eyelids. One was an old patriarch which fell, I 



