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Arboreal Aberrations 



REES! 



Lowell had something to say about 



" Rippling through thy branches goes the sunshine, 

 Among thy leaves that palpitate for ever"; 



and another Cambridge savant told of " the spreading 

 chestnut-tree," under the branches of which was prob- 

 ably a good place to gather chestnuts fit to eat, and 

 perhaps some unfit to repeat. Wordsworth, Keats, 

 Shelley all had something to say about trees (although 

 it is whispered that the family-tree of the latter poet 

 suffered some aberrations !). Generally speaking and 

 notwithstanding, however, the trees those men referred 

 to, either evergreen or deciduous, had no particular or 

 peculiar points of interest outside of being a part of the 

 immortal fabric of a famous poet-tree ! 



As all the conventional upstanding trees, from the 

 banyan to the shoe-tree, seem to have been prosed and 

 versed until there is nothing more to be said regarding 

 them, the accompanying pictures of abnormal individuals 

 may be of interest. 



No. i. 



This shows the stump of a pine-tree, where the seed 

 evidently lodged in soil formed by rotting moss or other 

 vegetation, and thriving, thrust its tentacle roots, octopus- 

 like, down over the boulder and into the more intensive 

 nourishment of the ground. Investigation showed three 

 of these main roots enveloping the boulder, none of which 



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