SIZE AND LONGEVITY OF TREES. 97 



i8 feet from the ground to the bottom of the crown, and 3 feet 6^ 

 inches in circumference at the base ; at 6;^ feet from the surface of 

 the ground the circumference was only 2 feet 1 inch, and a small 

 fraction. As the palms and baobabs will be carefully protected in the 

 Botanical Garden of Cayenne, an opportunity wiL je afforded future 

 observers of following these plants in their growth, with a perfect 

 assurance of being correct as to their age. 



Particular trees of different kinds have occasionally acquired re- 

 markable dimensions and lived to great ages in Europe. An elm is 

 mentioned which grew on the promenade of Morges, the age of which, 

 reckoned from the number of concentric layers, must have been 

 three hundred and thirty-five years ; its trunk was above 18 feet in 

 diameter. The lime is another tree which in temperate countries 

 sometimes grows to a great size. The one planted at Freiburg to 

 commemorate the victory of Morat in 1476, in 1831 was 14i feet in 

 diameter. Near the same place there is another tree of the same 

 kind which must be older than the last, inasmuch as it was already 

 celebrated for its size a century ago ; in 1831 this tree was upwards 

 of 36 feet in circumference, and about 72 feet in height. The 

 lime-tree of Neustadt is scarcely less curious for its size and the 

 immense spread of its branches than for the historical circumstances 

 connected with it. Looking back to old documents, this tree must 

 already have been of great size in 1229 ; in a poem written in 1408 

 we are told that this tree was then supported by sixty-seven props ; 

 in 1654 it had eighty-two stone pillars to support its branches, and 

 in 1831 the number had increased to one hundred and six. The cir- 

 cumference of the trunk at 6^ feet from the ground measured very 

 nearly 39 feet. An old measurement made one hundred and fifty 

 years before corresponds very nearly with this, a fact which shows 

 that in the course of a century and a half the trunk of the lime-tree 

 of Neustadt had not grown perceptibly. It is said to be from seven 

 to eight hundred years old. The old lime-tree of Chaille in 1801 

 was upwards of 49 feet in circumference. 



The beech grows rapidly while young ; but in more advanced age 

 with extreme slowness. In 1818 Deluc saw several beeches near 

 Geneva, the trunk of which was from 14 to 16 feet in diameter. 



De Candolle measured a larch two hundred and fifty-five years 

 old, the trunk of which was upwards of 5f feet (5.84 ft.) in diame- 

 ter ; and a larch of no move than fifty-four years growth has been 

 measured which was more than 3| feet in diameter. 



The celebrated chestnut-tree of Mount Etna has been stated to be 

 upwards of 206^ feet in girth, (about 68 feet in diameter,) an-i must 

 therefore be the largest tree described up to the present time ; but 

 the tree has been supposed to be formed by several trunks springing 

 from a common root which have grown together. Other remarka- 

 ble chestnut-trees are mentioned. 



The plane is one of the largest growing trees of temperate coun- 

 tries. A traveller, who visited the valley of Bujukdere, near Con- 

 stantinople, met with a plane upwards of 95 feet in height, and the 

 trunk of which, hollow internally down to the levpl of the ground, 



9 



