RIVERSIDE LETTERS 243 



which I did not finally quit until I was twelve 

 years old, there grew a splendid tulip tree ; 

 for eight of these twelve years I was 

 capable of noticing the tree (my father was a 

 great tree-planter, and taught us to look at 

 flowering trees) and it blossomed every year 

 most luxuriantly. The tree was a mass of 

 orange and green lyre-shaped cups between 

 June and July. This tree flourished much 

 nearer London than your remembered tree 

 in Cashiobury Park. There is a superb 

 specimen in the garden of Taplow House, 

 Taplow ; it is stated to be the oldest specimen 

 in England ; but that kind of reputation is 

 much like the fable as to the rarity of the 

 Judas tree, or centenarianism in the human 

 being. In the garden at Taplow House 

 there is a Judas tree, as one also at Salt Hill, 

 Slough, in a garden opposite the Windmill 

 Inn. Doubtless there are scores more to be 

 seen, if we look and inquire, of Judas trees, 

 as of the Catalpa, another lovely flowering 

 tree, which you must have noticed in the 



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