30 FAMILIAR TKEBS 



montHs later, forming at once good-sized trees. 

 ■Nearly related to this characteristic is the longevity 

 of this species. The oldest existing trees in 

 England are almost certainly those at Syon. These 

 may have been planted by Dr. William Turner 

 himself, " the father of English botany," in 1547 or 

 1548 ; for that ardent Protestant, after studying 

 botany and medicine abroad during the later years 

 of Henry VIII.'s reign, returned to England soon 

 after the accession of ^Edward VL, and acted as 

 physician to the Protector Somerset, who had then 

 got possession of the monastery of Syon. These 

 old trees, still vigorous,, though now nearly 

 prostrate, may even date back farther to pre- 

 Reformation times. Though of far less antiquity, 

 we must here mention also the many fine Mul- 

 berries in the gardens of the colleges at Oxford and 

 at Cambridge, especially the tree planted by Milton 

 at Christ's College, Cambridge, and the little grove of 

 trees still bearing an annual fruit crop in the heart 

 of London, in the garden, ol the Charterhouse. 



The Black Mulberry is probably wild in 

 Northern Persia and Armenia, and, though it has 

 no Sanskrit name, was introduced into Greece at 

 an early date. Theophrastus speaks of it under 

 the name Snkami'nos, recognising its relationship 

 to the Figs, and it appears under the same name, 

 viz. Sycamine-tree, in St. Luke's Gospel and in the 

 curious passage in the First Book of Maccabees 

 which speaks of elephants being infuriated by the 

 sight of its juice. In some passages in Horace and 

 Ovid the word mora probably signifies Black- 



