STRUCTURE.] INSTANCES OF AGE BAOBAB. 203 



But the mere size of Exogenous trees testifies to their 

 occasional high antiquity. 



The Chesuut (Castanea vesca) of Mount JEtna, called the 

 Castagna di cento cavalli, because 100 horsemen can find 

 shelter in its hollow, is 180 feet in circumference. 



There is at this day in the village of Bujukdere, near 

 Constantinople, a hollow Plane tree (Platanus orientalis), 

 150 feet in circumference, and 80 feet in circumference 

 inside. 



The Courbaril tree (Hymena3a Courbaril), sometimes 

 acquires, in the West Indies, a diameter of 20 feet. 



The Ceiba tree (Bombax pentandrum) also called the 

 Buttress tree, is sometimes so large that fifteen men can 

 hardly embrace it with extended arms. 



Martius figures (see Vegetable Kingdom, p. 551.) enormous 

 Brazilian Hymenaeas, 84 feet in circumference at the butt, 

 and, as he thinks, referable to the age of Homer t 



Douglas saw Pinus Douglasiana 193 feet high, on the coast 

 of Oregon, near Cape Or ford, and Pinus Lambertiana 226 

 feet high. 



This is sufficient to establish the power, on the part of 

 Exogens, of attaining a very high antiquity, without admitting 

 the miscalculations of Be Candolle, as regards the Senegal 

 Baobabs, upon which Professor Henslow has very properly 

 commented thus : 



" Before we quite dismiss these wonders, we must mention 

 that M. De Candolle appears to have somewhat exaggerated, 

 or, as some may think, improved upon, the account of the 

 Baobab given by Adanson in his Families des Plantes. 

 That excellent observer stated the inscriptions which he 

 examined to have been on the surface of the tree, but M. De 

 Candolle has somehow made out that he had detected them 

 in the inside ! 



" ' The Baobab/ says he, ' is the most celebrated instance 

 of extreme longevity which has hitherto been noticed with 

 any degree of accuracy. In its native country it bears a 

 name which signifies " a thousand years ;" and, contrary to 

 what is usual, this name expresses what is in reality short of 

 the truth. Adanson has noticed one in the Cape de Verd 



