182 THE WONDERS OF VEGETATION. 



which are carefully interwoven, and the leaves form a 

 natural carpet. The birds of the air sing amid the 

 the green leaves, and are not disturbed by the people 

 that sit at the artificially formed windows. 



More elegant than the oak of Allouville which we 

 have already described, this sycamore does not ap- 

 pear to belong to the same category. It is only men- 

 tioned here as a type of the trees manipulated by art, 

 with which gardeners decorate country houses. 



THE TALLEST TREES. 



In closing our description of the most remarkable 

 specimens of the largest trees in nature, we have to 

 mention in the first place the dragon-tree of Orotava. 



" This colossal dragon-tree," says the author of the 

 Tableaux de la Nature, " is found in the garden of M. 

 Franqui, in the little town of Orotava, one of the most 

 pleasant places in the world. When we climbed the 

 Peak of Tenerifte, in 1799, we found that the circum- 

 ference of this tree was about 45 feet some little dis- 

 tance above the ground. At the top it was nearly 

 80 feet, which, considering its girth at the surface of 

 the soil, is not a little surprising. Tradition states 

 that among the Gouanches this tree was an object of 

 veneration, as the olive was among the Athenians, 

 the plane among the Lydians, and the banana among 

 the inhabitants of Ceylon." 



In the year 1402 the dragon-tree of Orotava was 

 accurately measured by the companions of Bethen- 

 court, at the time when they discovered the island, and 

 it was then as large and also as hollow as it is to-day 



