ANTIQUITY OP TREES 



109 



" Compared with it, the Oak of Ellerslie is but a sapling, and 

 the Conqueror's Oak in Windsor Forest barely numbers half 

 its years. The yew trees of Fountains Abbey ai-e believed to 

 have flourished tliere 1200 years ago; the olives in the garden 

 of Gethsemane were full-grown when the Saracens were expelled 



The Sacred Bo-Tree. 



from Jerusalem, and the cypress of Somma in Lombardy is said 

 to have been a tree in the time of Julius Caesar. Yet the Bo- 

 tree is older than the oldest of these by a century, and would 

 almost seem to verify the prophecy pronounced when it was 

 planted, that it would ' flourish and be green for ever.' 



