180 THE WONDERS OF VEGETATION. 



been stopped with plaster, has been protected by an 

 iron armor. As may well be imagined, nothing has 

 been neglected that can prolong the existence of this 

 .patriarch of locusts, well known to all visitors of the 

 1 Jardin des Plantes, who every spring eagerly come and 

 examine its branches to see whether there is still life 

 in the old plant.* But evidently its days are number- 

 ed. The sap, the life blood of the tree, circulates 

 sluggishly through it, and a hundred signs proclaim 

 that this tree, the oldest of all acacias, will soon be no 

 more. 



Placed at the extremity of the museum of miner- 

 alogy, in a part of the collection- but little frequented, 

 it does not attract the attention of visitors to the same 

 extent as the famous cedar of Lebanon, though per- 

 haps it is really more worthy of notice. It was plant- 

 ed in 1635 a century before the cedar in the place 

 where it still stands, by Vespasian Robin. The father 

 of this- naturalist had received it some time previously 

 from North America, and hence its botanical name of 

 Robinia. This was the same year in which the Jar- 

 din Royal' was definitely established by an edict of 

 Louis XIII. , and of the trees that were in existence at 

 that time, this is the only one that remains. It is 

 also the first acacia that ever came to Europe. It has 

 supplied not only France but Europe with one of the 

 most useful as well as most beautiful species of trees. 

 Not far from this acacia were formerly to be seen the 

 first saphora brought from Japan, and one of the first 

 horse-chestnuts from India that was ever seen in 

 Europe. 



