62 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



Much finer trees occur on the Continent than those in England ; and it is 

 evident that while the tree is healthy and hardy in this country, it requires hotter 

 summers and colder winters to attain its best development and ripen fruit. A 

 fine pair, male and female, stand in the old Botanic Garden of Geneva, where they 

 were planted in 1815. They were measured by Elwes in 1905, when the male tree 

 was 86 feet by 4 feet 10 inches, with a straight upright habit, the female, which bears 

 good seed, was considerably smaller. A famous specimen in the garden adjoining 

 the palace of the Grand Duke of Baden at Carlsruhe measured, in 1884, 84 feet, 

 with a diameter of 25 inches at 3 feet from the ground. Beissner^ says trees occur 

 in this garden of 25^ and 30 metres high, with stem diameters of 1.90 and 1.80 

 metres. The finest tree in Europe is probably one mentioned by Beissner,* which 

 stands in the Botanic Garden at Milan, and measures 40 metres high and 1.20 metre 

 in diameter. There is also a noble specimen in the gardens of the Villa Carlotta 

 on Lake Como. (A. H.) 



Beissner, Nadelhohkunde, 1891, pp. 191, 192. One of the trees at Cailsruhe is figured in Cartenwelt, iv. 44, 



p. 520. 



