CHAP. II. 



BRITISH ISLANDS. 



45 



as if the point of it were cut off, which grows very well with the 

 curious amongst us to a considerable stature. I conceive it was 

 first brought over by John Tradescant, under the name of the 

 tulip tree (from the likeness of its flowers), but is not, that I 

 find, taken notice of in any of our herbals. 1 wish we had 

 more of them." {Sijlva, edit. 1670.) The tulip tree was at 

 that time known through all the English settlements by the 

 title of poplar. (Himter's Evelyn^ i. 207.) Hermann says that 

 he observed in the park of the Duke of Norfolk, five or six 

 miles [Dutch miles] from London [? Deepdene], a tulip tree 

 which had been planted there twenty years before, but which 

 had never flowered or borne fruit, {Hort. Acad. Lugd. Bat, 

 Cat. 1687, p. 61.5.) At Say's Court, Deptford, one of Evelyn's re- 

 sidences, he is said to have had a variety of trees ; but Gibson, 

 who visited it in 1691, after Evelyn had left it, found only the 

 phillyrea and the holly : of the former, Evelyn had four large 

 round and smoothly clipped plants, on naked stems ; and of the 

 latter, a hedge, 400 ft. long, 9 ft. high, and 5 ft. in diameter. 

 Evelyn was very proud of this hedge, and mentions it more 

 than once in his writings. It was ruined by Peter the Great, 

 who, having taken the house at Say's Court, to be near the 

 Deptford dockyards, had himself wheeled through this hedge in 

 a wheelbarrow for amusement ! Evelyn planted cedars, pines, 

 silver firs, ilexes, and walnuts at Wooton, some of which we 

 found still remaining there in 1830. Evelyn, however, was more 

 anxious to promote the planting of valuable indigenous trees, 

 than to introduce foreign ones. 



Gibson, who made a tour through the gardens about London 

 in 1691, which was published from his MS. many years after- 

 wards in the Archceologia, tells us that he found Sir William 

 Temple's garden, at West Sheen, to excel in orange trees and 

 other " greens," as evergreen shrubs were called at that time: 

 Among these " greens," Italian bays, laurustinuses, and striped 

 hollies were included. Sir Henry Capell is said to have had 

 as " curious greens, in his garden at Kew, as any about London." 

 His two lentiscus trees (Pistacia Zentiscus) for which he paid 

 AOL to Versprit, were said to be the best in England. He had 

 four white-striped hollies, about 4 feet above their cases, kept 

 " round and regular," which cost him 51. a tree ; and six laurus- 

 tinuses, with " large, round, equal heads, very flowery and 

 showy." " In the garden of Sir Stephen Fox, at Chiswick 

 (which, though only of five years' standing, is brought to great 

 perfection for the time), are two myrtle hedges about 3 ft. high. 

 They are protected in winter with cases of boards painted." 

 Sir Josiah Child's plantations of walnuts and other trees, at 

 Wanstead, are said by Gibson to be " much more worth seeing 

 than his gardens, which are but indifferent." " Captain Foster's 



