96 CULTURE OP CHARACTERISTIC EXOTIC PLANTS. 



goes back among the Iraunians to the rules of Horn, called, 

 in the Zend-Avesta, the promulgator of the old law. We 

 know from Herodotus the delight which Xerxes took in the 

 great plane tree in Lydia, on which he bestowed golden 

 ornaments, and appointed for it a sentinel in the person of 

 one of the " immortal ten thousand" ( 131 ). The early 

 veneration of trees was associated, by the moist and refresh- 

 ing canopy of foliage, with that of sacred fountains. In 

 similar connection with the early worship of nature, were, 

 amongst the Hellenic nations, the fame of the great palm 

 tree of Delos, and of an aged plane tree in Arcadia. The 

 Buddhists of Ceylon venerate the colossal Indian fig tree 

 (the Banyan) of Anurahdepura, supposed to have sprung 

 from the branches of the original tree under which Buddha, 

 while inhabiting the ancient Magadha, was absorbed in 

 beatification, or " self-extinction" (nirwana) ( 132 ). As 

 single trees thus became objects of veneration from the 

 beauty of their form, so did also groups of trees, under the 

 name of " groves of the gods." Pausanias is full of the 

 praise of a grove belonging to the temple of Apollo, at 

 Grynion, in ^Eolis ( 133 ) ; and the grove of Colone. is cele- 

 brated in the renowned chorus of Sophocles. 



The love of nature which showed itself in the selection 

 and care of these venerated objects of the vegetable kingdom, 

 manifested itself with yet greater vivacity, and in a more 

 varied manner, in the horticultural arrangements of the early 

 civilised nations of Eastern Asia. In the most distant part 

 of the old continent, the Chinese gardens appear to have 

 approached most nearly to what we now call English parks. 

 Under the victorious dynasty of Han, gardens of this class 

 were extended over circuits of so many miles that agriculture 



