24? HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY OF TREES. PART I. 



the custom in France. The antiquity of the sweet chestnut at 

 Tortworth, which he had ascertained from Lord Ducie to be 

 much exaggerated, he alleges to be no proof that the tree is 

 indigenous. " The English, or narrow-leaved, elm," he says, 

 " being much esteemed by the Romans, was probably introduced 

 by them. The box," he erroneously (see Herb., 1597, p. 1226.) 

 states, " is not mentioned by Gerard, and," he adds, " the 

 tree is found nowhere in an apparently wild state, except on 

 Box Hill, where it was planted by Lord Arundel, who designed 

 to build a house there, but who relinquished his intention from 

 the want of water, and built one at Albury hard by." The 

 only native evergreen trees and shrubs of Britain would thus 

 appear to be the Scotch pine, the holly, the juniper, the furze, 

 the spurge laurel, the butcher's broom, and the ivy. The furze 

 Dr. Walker supposes not to be aboriginal, but to have been in- 

 troduced from the mountains of Portugal, where it abounds. 

 His reason is, that it is the only alleged indigenous shrub which 

 flowers during winter ; and that during severe winters it is 

 killed to the ground, both in England and Scotland. According 

 to these authors, the only indigenous evergreen trees are the 

 Scotch pine and the holly; so that we are thus reduced to two 

 evergreen trees and four evergreen shrubs ; unless we include 

 such under-shrubs as the heath, the Andromeda, the ^4rctosta- 

 phylos LPva ursi, &c, which do not generally attain the height 

 of two feet. 



Perhaps it may be thought unreasonable to allege that the 

 lime and the yew are not natives of Britain, since they unques- 

 tionably are of countries which lie farther north ; viz., the north 

 of Germany and Sweden : but it must be remembered that the 

 summers of these countries are hotter than those of England, in 

 consequence of which, the lime ripens its seeds everyvyear, which 

 it seldom does in Britain. In countries without extremes either 

 of heat or cold, such as the sea coast of Britain and great part of 

 Ireland, many trees will live and thrive without ever producing 

 seeds. Such trees may remain for ages in a country, without 

 being one step nearer naturalisation than the day on which they 

 were introduced. In Hasted's Kent it is stated that Sir John 

 Speilman, who introduced the manufacture of paper into England 

 from Germany, in the time of Elizabeth, and to whom Queen 

 Elizabeth granted the manor of Portbridge in Dartford, intro- 

 duced the lime tree. He is said to have brought over two trees 

 with him in his portmanteau, and to have planted them at Port- 

 bridge, near the dwelling-house belonging to the powder mills; 

 where, according to Hasted, they remained till they were cut 

 down a few years previously to the time when he wrote, which 

 was in 1776. {Beauties of England, fyc, Kent, p. 562.) The 

 lime, however, is represented by Turner as growing to a large 

 size in 1562; so that the trees introduced by Speilman could 



