THE ROMANCE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



tutes its great attraction, as the wonderful spread 

 of its magnificent branches, and the perfect dome- 

 like shape of its head, which is so exact and regu- 

 lar that one could almost fancy some extinct race 

 of giants had been exercising their topiarian art 

 upon it. The circumference of this dome is said to 

 be nearly six hundred feet, and the measure 

 [arch?] of its semicircular head very nearly as 

 great. The zamang is a species of mimosa, and 

 what is curious and adds greatly to its beauty 

 and softness is, that the leaves of this giant of 

 nature are as small and delicate as those of the 

 silver- willow, and are equally as sensitive to every 

 passing breeze."* 



Even in temperate climates, among the trees 

 with which we are familiar, vast dimensions are 

 not unknown. A yew in the churchyard of Gras- 

 ford, North Wales, measures more than fifty feet 

 in girth below the branches. In Lithuania, lime- 

 trees have been measured of the circumference of 

 eighty-seven feet.t And, near Saintes, in France, 

 there is an oak, which is sixty-four feet in height, 

 and measures nearly thirty feet in diameter close 

 to the ground, and twenty- three feet at five feet 

 high. A little room, twelve feet nine inches in 

 width, has been made in the hollow of the trunk, 

 and a semicircular bench within it has been carved 

 out of the living wood. A window gives light to 

 the interior, and a door closes it, while elegant 

 ferns and lichens serve for hangings to the walls.]: 



But let us look at examples in which prodigious 

 height and immense bulk are united. The Macro- 

 cystis and the ratan are enormously lengthened, 

 but they are slender ; the baobab and the cypress 



* Sullivan's "Rambles in North and South America," p. 400. 

 + Endlicher, ki Grundz. der Bot.," p. 399. 



* Ann. Soc. Agr., Rochelle, 1843. 



134 



