PART III. ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM. 2539 



Augsburg, under whose prodigious shade they so often feast and celebrate 

 their weddings ; because they are all of them noted for their reverend an- 

 tiquity; that of Basil branching out one hundred paces in diameter from a stem 

 of about 20 ft. in circle, under which the German emperors have sometimes 

 eaten ; and to such trees, it seems, they paid divine honours, as the nearest 

 emblems of eternity.' (Hunt. Evcl.,\\. p. 180.) At Neustadt, in Wirtemburg, 

 there is a prodigious lime tree, which gives its name to the town, that being 

 called Neustadt an der Linden. This tree is said by Evelyn to have had, in 

 his time, a trunk above 27 ft. in circumference, and the diameter of the space 

 covered by its branches to have been 403 ft. It was * set about with divers 

 columns and monuments of stone (82 in number, and formerly above 100 

 more), which several princes and noble persons have adorned, and which, as 

 so many pillars, serve likewise to support the umbrageous and venerable 

 boughs ; and that even the tree had been much ampler, the ruins and distances 

 of the columns declare, which the rude soldiers have greatly impaired.' (Ibid., 

 p. 187.) Evelyn adds copies of many of the inscriptions on the columns, the 

 oldest of which is dated 1550 ; and the column on which it is inscribed 

 supports one of the largest limbs, at a considerable distance from the tree, 

 which must thus have been of enormous size nearly three hundred years 

 ago. In the wars which afterwards desolated the country, this lime tree 

 suffered severely ; and Gilpin tells us that its limbs were mangled in wanton- 

 ness by the troops besieging Neustadt. This tree is still (1838) in exist- 

 ence; and, by a drawing of it made for us in 1837, by M. Abresch, a 

 young German artist, we find that its trunk is now 18 ft. in diameter, and is 

 surrounded by a balustrade of wood raised on a low wall coped with stone ; 

 and that its limbs are supported on 108 columns. The people of Neustadt 

 are in the habit of sitting in this tree to eat fruit, &c. ; and several gooseberry 

 bushes have sprung up in the crevices and hollows of the bark, the fruit of 

 which is sold to visiters. 



" Evelyn mentions another remarkable lime at Cleves, cut in eight sides, 

 supported on pillars, and having a room in the middle of the tree ; and another 

 at Tillburg, near Buda, in Hungary, growing in the middle of the street, and 

 having its branches supported by 28 columns. Besides these trees, he notices 

 'the famous tilia of Zurich;' and 'the linden of Schalouse, in Swisse, 

 under which is a bower, composed of its branches, capable of containing 

 300 persons sitting at ease : it has a fountain set about with many tables, 

 formed only of the boughs, to which they ascend by steps, all kept so accu- 

 rately, and so very thick, that the sun never looks into it.' (Ibid.) In Evelyn's 

 Diary, he tells us that, in the year 1641, in the cloister garden of the Convent 

 of St. Clara, at BoisleDuc, there was an overgrown lime tree, out of the stem 

 of which, near the root, ' issued five upright exceedingly tall suckers, or boles, 

 the like whereof, for evenness and height, were never observed.' (Diary, 

 &c, 8vo edit., i. p. 38.) * An extraordinary and stately tilia, linden, or lime 

 tree, there groweth at Depeham, in Norfolk, ten miles from Norwich, whose 

 measure is this: — The compass, in the least part of the trunk or body, at about 

 6 ft. from the ground, is 26 ft. ; near the ground, 46 feet ; and at 3 ft., 36 ft. 

 The height is about 90 ft.' (Ibid.) 



" In the cemetery of the hospital at Annaberg, in Saxony, is a very old lime 

 tree, with enormous branches. The planter of this tree, who is buried under 

 its shade, left a sum of money to have a sermon preached every Trinity 

 Sunday under it. This tree is of enormous size, and is said, when young, 

 to have been planted with its head downwards, and root upwards. 



" In Prussia, near Konigsberg, are two large lime trees growing closely 

 together on a grassy bank. The legend is, that beneath these trees are buried, a 

 bride who died on her wedding day, and her husband, who did not long survive 

 her loss, both lying in one grave. This tree is a favourite try sting- place for 

 lovers. In the churchyard at Seidlitz, in Bohemia, are some old lime trees, 

 the leaves of which are hooded ; and the peasants affirm that they have been 

 so ever since some monks from a neighbouring convent were hanged on the 



