THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 545 



The ancient races, struck with the noble aspect of our 

 oaks, have in all ages enveloped them in the clouds of 

 their legends, and carried them back to the remotest an- 

 tiquity. Of this class was the mighty holm-oak, which 

 in the days of Pliny still existed near Rome, on the trunk 

 of which there was an Etruscan inscription in letters of 

 brass, stating that before the existence of the Eternal City 

 it was already the object of popular veneration. The 

 Roman naturalist also asserts that in the environs of 

 Heraclea, in the kingdom of Pontus, there was a tradition 

 that two oaks which overshadowed the altar of Jupiter 

 Stragius had been planted by Hercules.^ 



The origin of certain trees is lost in even more remote 

 antiquity. 



The imposing terror of the Hercynian forest has deeply 

 impressed all those who have described Germany, and 

 Pliny and Tacitus especially. The aged oaks of its sombre 

 vales, where wandered the elk and the aurochs, especially 

 aroused the admiration of the Roman historian; he can- 

 not refrain from speaking of them in the most lofty terms : 

 "The majestic grandeur of the oak in this forest," he 

 says, "surpasses all imaginable belief: this tree has never 

 been touched with the axe; it is contemporary with the 

 creation of the world, and appears to be the symbol of 

 immortality!" 



Pliny does not restrict himself to this splendid image; 

 he adds fiu'ther details: "I wish," he says, "to preserve 



1 In the Crimea some trees are met with which possess a certain amount of 

 celebrity. The chief one is a nut-tree in a plain near Balaklava, at the spot 

 where stood the temple of Iphigenia in Tauris. It is considered to have been 

 in existence at the time when the Greek colonies exported their nuts to Eome, 

 and that its age dates back several thousand years. At present its fertility is 

 so great that it bears every year as many as 1(K),000 nuts, which are shared with- 

 out any jarring among five Tartar families, to whom it belongs. 



