CELEBRATED TREES. 177 



year^ Mr. G. F. Eodwell writes concerning tlie gigantic- 

 and famous Chestnut, as follows; 'The celehrated Gastagno 

 di Oenio OavalU, one of the largest and oldest trees in the 

 world, is in the forest of Oarpinetto, on the east side of 

 the mountain, five miles from Giarre. This tree has the 

 appearance of five separate trunks united into one, but 

 Ferrara declares that, by digging a very short distance 

 below the surface, he found one single stem. The public 

 road now passes through the much-decayed trunk. 

 Captain Symth measured the circumference a few feet 

 from the ground, and found it to be 163 feet, which would 

 give it a diameter of niore than fifty feet. The tree 

 derives its name from the story that one of the Queens of 

 Aragon took shelter in its trunk with a suite of 100 

 horsemen, Mr. Eodwell adds : — ' Near this patriarch arc 

 several large Chestnuts, which, without a shadow of doubt, 

 are single trees ; one of these is eighteen feet in diameter^ 

 and a second fifteen feet, while the Gastagno della Galea, 

 higher up on the mountains, is twenty-five feet in diameter, 

 and probably more than 1000 years old.' — Ed. 



At Niestadt, in the Ducliy of Wirtemberg, 

 stood a Lime wHcli was for many ages so re- 

 markable that the city frequently took its de- 

 nomination from it, being often called Niestadt 

 an der grossen Linden, or Niestadt near the Great 

 Lime. Scarce any person passed near Niestadt 

 without visiting this tree, and many princes and 



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