36 THE WOODLANDS. 



Europe by the Greeks from Asia Minor, about 504 

 B.C. Theophrastus says that in his time Mount 

 Olympus was nearly covered with chestnut trees ; and 

 Pliny says that the nuts were ground into meal and 

 made into bread by the poor. Etna is celebrated for 

 the great age and colossal dimensions of its chestnut 

 trees. The noted Castagno di Cento Cavalli has a 

 circumference near the root of one hundred and eighty 

 feet, the Castagno di Santa Agata seventy feet, and the 

 Castagno della Nave sixty-four feet. The name of 

 " Cento Cavalli " is said to have its origin in this wise. 

 When Jean of Arragon visited Mount Etna, attended 

 by her nobility, they were caught in a heavy shower ; 

 then the queen with a hundred cavaliers took shelter 

 under the branches of this tree, which completely 

 covered them from the rain. 



Lovers of roasted chestnuts will remember that 

 Martial says, 



" For chestnuts roasted by a gentle heat, 

 No city can the learned Naples beat ; " 



and that Milton alludes to the hearth where 



"Blackening chestnuts start and crackle there." 



The HoRSE-CHESTNUT 1 is the only conspicuous 

 flowered tree we have. The flowers in the majority 

 of our large trees are small and greenish, so as 

 scarcely to be seen ; but in this tree they are pink 

 and white, growing in pyramidal clusters ; and when 

 a number of trees are in full bloom, as they are 

 annually in Bushy Park, it is a sight well worth a 



1 j&sculus hippocastanvm-. 



