CHAP. III. 



CONTIl^JENT OF EUROPE. 



147 



exceptions. Supposing this to be the case, the ligneous flora of the British 

 Isles, added to the species above enumerated, will give to Germany a flora of 

 upwards of 360 species of indigenous trees and shrubs. 



The introduction of foreign trees and shrubs into Germany, subsequently to 

 the time of the Romans, and to that of the foundation of religious corpora- 

 tions, appears to have commenced with the establishment of botanic gardens. 

 The first tree of note, of the introduction of which we have any record, is the 

 horsechestnut, which, according to Beckmann {Hist, of Invent., ^c), was 

 brought to Vienna by the botanist Chisius, somewhei'e about 1576. In Clu- 

 sius's Rariorum Plantarum, &c., published in 1601, he states that in 1581 the 

 horsechestnut was considered as a botanical raritj^, but that in 1588 there was 

 a tree at Vienna which had been brought there twelve years before, but which 

 had not then produced bloom. M. Bon de Saint-Hilaire {Memoire sur les 

 Marrons cVInde), however, says that the horsechestnut passed from the moun- 

 tains of Tliibet to England in 1550, and thence to Vienna in 1588. The first 

 plant of Robinfa Pseud-/icacia was brought to Vienna in 1696 ; and the remains 

 of it are still living in the courtyard of the palace formerly occupied by Count 

 Fries in the Place Joseph, and now belonging to Baron Sina. The ground 

 on which this tree stands was formerly part of the garden of a convent of 

 nuns, founded by the widoAv of Charles IX. of France, whose high-steward 

 was the celebrated Augerius, Baron de Burbeck, the friend of Clusius. The 

 oldest foreign trees in Austria are at Schonbrunn, and consist chiefly of tulip 

 trees, platanus, acers, juglans, robinias, and Crataegus, planted about the 

 middle of the last century, or earlier. There is a more complete collection, 

 though not quite so old, in the grounds of Prince Lichtenstein at Eisgrub, 

 near Nikolsburg. About the middle of the last century, this nobleman sent 

 M. van der Schott, a German, to North America; wlio collected there an 

 immense quantity of seeds, which were sown on the prince's estates in Austria, 

 Moravia, and Bohemia, and now form immense forests. 



One of the oldest exotic trees in Germany is a Thuja occidentalis, near the 

 old castle of Heidelberg, a drawing of which has been sent us by M. Hitter of 

 Pesth, and which must have been planted when the grounds round the castle 

 were laying out by Solomon Caus, as it bears a ticket stating that it was 

 placed there in 161*8. Caus began to plant the castle garden in 1615. {Metz- 

 ger's Castle of Heidelberg, p. 60.) This venerable tree is at present about 

 30 ft. high, with a naked trunk leaning to one side, and a very few branches 

 at top. In the gardens of this castle there are two large yew trees, which 

 were planted in 1650, and some cornelian cherry trees (Cornus mas), which 

 were brought from Neuburg on the Danube in 1769. There are also some 

 very old lime trees. The Margraves of Baden have from the earliest ages 

 been much attached to planting and gardening. In the grounds of the ancient 

 grand-ducal palace of Durlach near Carlsruhe, which was the residence of this 

 family for many centuries, and a part of the palace walls of which are sup- 

 posed to be as old as the time of the Romans, there is an ash 140 ft. high, 

 and 19 ft. in circumference at one foot from the ground. A board fixed to 

 the trunk states that it was 300 years old in 1802. As the ash is not indi- 

 genous in the neighbourhood, this ash is, probably, the oldest planted tree in 

 German}'. At Durlach, also, there are the remains of an avenue of chestnuts : 

 the trunks are hollow, but some of them are 120 ft. high and 15 ft. in circum- 

 ference : they are thought to have been planted about the end of the sixteenth 

 century. The road from Durlach to Carlsruhe is through an avenue of Lom- 

 bardy poplars, the oldest and the highest in Germany ; none of the trees are 

 under 90 ft. high, and many of them are above 120 ft. Nothing of the kind 

 can be more subhme. The worthy old Margrave Charles, the first Grand- 

 Duke of Baden, who died about 1805, and one of his sons yet alive, the 

 Margrave William of Baden, may be reckoned amongst the most zealous pro- 

 moters of the planting of foreign trees and shrubs ; in proof of which, we need 

 only refer to the parks at Carlsruhe, Schwetzingen, Mannheim, and Baden 

 Baden. 



