58 FAMILIAR TREES 



the oldest Cypresses in England are those at Syon 

 House, Isleworth, believed to have been planted by 

 Turner before 1548. One of these is over fifty-two feet 

 high, and one foot three inches in the diameter of its 

 trunk and eight feet in that of its head. Turner 

 dates the dedication to Somerset of his " Names of 

 Herbes " " From your graces house at S} 7 on, Anno 

 Dom. MCCCCCxlviij, Martii xv," and in that work he 

 writes : " Cupressus is named in greeke Cyparissos, 

 in englishe a cypresse tree. Cypresses growe in great 

 plentie in my Lordes graces gardine at Syon." 



About fifty years later Gerard speaks of the 

 Cypress as well known to most people, but specifies 

 Syon, Greenwich, and Hampstead as places where 

 it then grew ; so that this is not inconsistent with 

 its having been brought from Italy by Turner. 



The dimensions of the species in Southern Europe 

 vastly surpass our largest examples. Thus one at 

 Monza, in Italy, known to be 150 years old, is 

 recorded as ninety feet high, two and a half feet in 

 diameter of the stem, and twenty feet in that of the 

 tree. Two Cypresses planted by Michael Angelo are 

 still living in the garden of the Chartreuse at Rome. 

 By far the largest and oldest Cypress in Europe, per- 

 haps the oldest living tree of any kind, is the historical 

 and gigantic tree at Soma, in Lombardy. It is popu- 

 larly supposed to have been planted in the year of the 

 birth of Christ, and is looked upon with great rever- 

 ence in consequence ; but there is said to be docu- 

 mentary evidence that it was a tree more than forty 

 vears earlier. It is over 120 feet in heiorht, and 

 its stem is twenty-three feet round. In addition to 



