MAIDENHAIR TREE 89 



and the Maidenhair-tree itself was a forest tree in 

 England and Scotland in those far-distant days 

 when the great reptiles dominated the world. 

 Megalosaurs must have crashed through for- 

 ests of Maidenhair-tree . Iguanodons must have 

 dragged down the young trees for food. The 

 flying dragons, the Pterodactyls, must have 

 rested on its great branches after a raid ! 



Professor Seward in his interesting book 

 Links with the Past in the Plant World 

 speaks of it as a " living fossil." But the 

 Maidenhair-tree was a living fossil when the 

 great mammals took the place of the great 

 reptiles when the mammoth came, browsed 

 on its leaves, and departed. It was still more 

 a living fossil in those dim days when the earth 

 was ready for man, whose big brain and cunning 

 hand were destined to give him dominion over 

 all. 



This solitary survivor of an ancient race at 

 length disappeared from among wild trees ; 

 but it had been rescued and kept alive for the 

 present race of men by the Chinese, who, by 

 some curious instinct, determined to save it, 

 plant it near their temples, and tend it as a 

 sacred tree. 



Sir David Prain, the late Director of Kew, 

 who has helped to make those gardens the 

 pleasant resort they are for Londoners, once 

 told the writer that he believed the Maiden- 

 hair-tree to be the tree 01 the " Willow-pattern " 

 plate ; and those who compare an old Maiden- 

 hair-tree's slender side-branches covered all 

 the way with small leaves, and turning up 

 gracefully at the end of their downward curve 



