Acer 649 



remains of an immense sycamore which was struck by lightning in i860. It 

 measured in 1821 as follows : 



Height 



Girth at smallest part of trunk 

 ,, where branches separate 

 \ at ground 



Extreme width of branches . 

 Cubic contents 



Captain Stirling informs me that its age, which can be determined from 

 an entry in the records of the estate, is about 440 years. Hunter ^ says that this 

 tree was known as the big tree of Kippenross in the time of Charles H., and 

 in 1806 was described by Mr. Ramsay of Ochtertyre, as "now much the greatest 

 in this country." He adds that in 1740 the late John Stirling of Keir was told 

 by a woman over eighty, that though all the other trees had grown much in her 

 recollection, she knew of no change in the great tree which many people came to 

 see as a curiosity. 



At Keir, Perthshire, there is a remarkable sycamore stool, with eleven stems, 

 85 feet in height and averaging in girth about 6 feet. 



Sir Herbert Maxwell sends me the measurement of a sycamore behind the 

 Birnam Hotel at Dunkeld, which Hunter figures on the frontispiece of Woods and 

 Forests of Perthshire, and says^ that it was supposed to be 1000 years old ; 

 this of course is without foundation, and the girth, 19 feet 8 inches, as taken 

 by Sir H. Maxwell, is precisely the same as Hunter gave 25 years before. 



In the parish of Cramond, county of Edinburgh, a tree of this species is 

 stated in the Old and Remarkable Trees of Scotland, p. 198, to have attained 

 130 feet in height, but I must doubt the accuracy of this statement, of which I 

 can obtain no confirmation. 



Many large trees in the south-west of Scotland are recorded by Renwick,^ of 

 which one at Erskine House, Renfrewshire, is 75 feet high and 19 feet 4 inches 

 in girth, but this has only a short bole of 7 feet. Another at Logansraes, in the 

 same county, is 80 feet high and 18 feet 3 inches in girth, with a spread of 95 feet. 

 Strutt figures, on plate 3 of Sylva Scotica, a sycamore at Bishopton, in Renfrew- 

 shire, which was about 60 feet by 20 feet and contained 720 feet of timber.* 



At Inveraray Castle, close to the big Scots pine, there is a fine sycamore 

 about 100 feet high, with a bole of about 35 feet, but its girth in 1906 was 

 only 1 2 feet 2 inches. 



At Invergarry Castle there is an avenue of sycamores, said to date from 1689. 



In Ireland, the sycamore is commonly planted and grows with great vigour, 

 but Henry has seen no specimens rivalling those of Scotland in size. At 



1 Woods, Forests, and Estates of Perthshire, 286 (1883). " Ibid. 73. 



^ Measurements of Notable Trees, Glasgow, 1 90 1. 



* Sir C. Renshaw informs me that this tree still survives, and that, according to local tradition, John Knox formerly 

 preached under it, but that it is not so fine a tree as one at Erskine House, the property of W. A. Baird, Esq. 



