19 



NATURAL SCIENCE NEWS. 



annual. Nevertheless allowing 

 that the Baobab forms two rings in 

 each year, in lieu of one, it is still 

 deserving of 'honorable mention.' 

 Yews have a great reputation as 

 long-livers. The care usually tak- 

 en of them in church-yards and 

 similar places, no doubt tends great- 

 ly to their preservation. Thus a 

 yew in the church-yard of Bra- 

 bourne, in Kent, has, it is believed, 

 reached the enormous age of 3,000 

 years; another at Fortingal, in 

 Scotland, is quoted at 2,600 years, 

 and others at Crowhurst, in Surrey 

 and at fountains Abbey, are put 

 down at 1,400 years. The yew 

 has some near relatives in the cy- 

 press, the Taxodium, and the Well- 

 ingtonia. Of the first there is a 

 specimen at Grenda, which was a 

 celebrated tree before the Moors 

 were expelled from Spain by Fer- 

 dinand and Isabella, toward the 

 end of the fifteenth century. A 

 Taxodium distichum at Oaxaca, in 

 Mexico, which in 1829 measured 

 120 feet in height by 117 in circum- 

 ference, is supposed to number 

 forty centuries. It sheltered Her- 

 nan Cortez and his little band of 

 adventures under its wide-spread- 

 ing boughs about the year 1520. 

 Among the gigantic Wellingtonias 

 (orWashingtonias, as our thin-skin- 

 ned cousins across the Atlantic 

 will persist in calling them in spite 

 of priority of title) — among these 

 mammoth trees of California, which 

 reach a height of 300 or 400 feet, 

 individuals have been observed 

 which must have witnessed 3,000 

 summers. 



"Two other American trees, 

 both Brazilian, have been noticed 

 for their size and probably long 

 lease of life. The first is the Berth- 

 oletia, which supplies the 'Brazil 

 nut' of commerce, specimens of 

 which, growing on the banks of 

 the Amazon, have been noticed 

 with more than 1 ,000 distinct rings. 

 The other is the Hymenaea, in con- 

 nection with which I transcribe the 

 following passage from 'Lindley's 

 Vegetable Kingdom.' The size of 

 the timber is sometimes prodigious. 

 The locust trees of the west have 

 long been celebrated for their gi- 

 gantic stature, and other species 

 are the colossi of South American 

 forest. Martins represents a scene 

 in Brazil, where some trees of this 

 kind occured of such enormous di- 

 mensions that fifteen Indians with 

 outstretched arms could only just 

 embrace one of them. At the bot- 

 tom they were 84 feet in circum- 

 ference, and 50 feet where the 

 holes became cylindrical. By 

 counting the concentric rings of 



such parts as were accessible, he 

 arrived at the conclusion that they 

 were of the age of Homer, and 332 

 years old in the days Pythagoras; 

 one estimate indeed reduced their 

 antiquity to 2,052 years while an- 

 other carried it up to 4,104; from 

 which he argues that the trees can- 

 not but date far beyond the time of 

 our Saviour. 



"My remaining examples are 

 European. Among them is a chest- 

 nut tree growing on Mount Etna, 

 and generally known as Castagna 

 di cento cavalli, on account of the 

 immense space which it overshad- 

 ows. It is 180 feet in circumfer- 

 ence, and cannot be less than one 

 thousand old. A scarcely less cel- 

 ebrated tree is growing at Tort- 

 worth, in Gloucestershire. It was 

 a tree 'of mark' in the days of 

 King John. The great lime tree 

 of Neustadt on the Kocher, in 

 Wurtemburg, which as early as 

 1220 caused the town to be known 

 as Neustadt ander grosseti Linde, is 

 believed to be not less than 800 

 years old. Its stem is 38 feet in 

 circumference. At Worms, where 

 there has been lately such a gath- 

 ering of crowned and ducal heads 

 to do honor to the memory of the 

 geat Reformer Luther, is an elm 

 well known in Germany as the 

 Lutherbaum, which measures 116 

 feet in height, with a stem 35 feet 

 in circumference, and has attained 

 an age of not less than 700 years. 



"A less venerable member of the 

 vegetable kingdom, though still 

 one that can look back through a 

 tolerable vista of years, is a Judas 

 tree (Cercis siliquastrutri), in the 

 Botanic Garden at Montpelier; it 

 was planted in 1598, and conse- 

 quently numbers 260 years. Its 

 trunk a short time ago measured 

 12 feet around In 'Science Gossip' 

 of last year, p. 163, was given a 

 short account of a rose, which 

 covers one end of the principal 

 church at Hildesheim, in Hanover. 

 This remarkable climber was well 

 known as 'a monument of the past' 

 as early as 1054. Tradition as- 

 signs its origin to the year 814, 

 under Louis the Pious, son and suc- 

 cessor of Charlemagne. 



"Another tree with a legendary 

 history is a 'Gospel Oak' in my 

 own neighborhood in Hampshire, 

 standing in Avington Park. If we 

 are to believe the stories told of it, 

 and common there in every one's 

 mouth, this -old, old tree' was 

 spared, at the earnest intercession 

 of certain monk residing at Win- 

 chester, solely on account Of its 

 great age, when a brother of Wil- 

 liam the Conqueor leveled the 



surrounding forest of Hampage, 

 about a. r>. 1076. For some six- 

 teen centuries, therefore, it has de- 

 fied the storms of winter; but the 

 latter have conquered at last. Ten 

 years ago the old veteran made a 

 final struggle to show some signs 

 of life; and now it stands a hollow 

 trunk, with two or three bare and 

 withered arms, and only prevented 

 from falling by a stout band of 

 iron, with which it is encircled. 

 A mere infant by the side of the 

 Avington tree is the Great Oak of 

 Pleischwitz, near Breslau, whose 

 age is reckoned by Goppert at 700 

 years. It was blown down in 1857; 

 its fall being due to a hollow with- 

 in its huge stem, which could ac- 

 commodate with ease twenty-five 

 or thirty persons standing upright. 



"Dr. A. B. Reichenbach, in his 

 ' 'Vollstandige Naturgeschichte, " 

 says: 'We know of lime in Lithu- 

 ania with 815 annual rings, and a 

 circumference of 82 feet; of oaks 

 in the Polish forest in which one 

 can count 710 perfect rings, and 

 whose stems measured 49 feet 

 round. There are elms whose age 

 is known to be above 350 years, 

 ivy 440, maples 516, larch 570, 

 oranges 640, planes 720, cedars 

 800, walnut 900, limes 1,000, pines 

 1,200, oaks 1,400, olives 2,000.' 

 From these numerous examples of 

 extreme old age one may almost 

 conclude that (provided the seed 

 from which they spring be sound, 

 the soil and climate favorable, and 

 the means of nourishment abun- 

 dant) the existence of many plants 

 may be extended to an indefinite 

 period, should they be fortunate 

 enough to escape accidents from 

 without. " 



Leeches. 



This animal has had a reputation 

 from the earliest periods of medi- 

 cal science. Even from the time 

 of Homer, the appelation of leech 

 was given to the practitioners of 

 the art of surgery, and in many of 

 the languages of German derivation 

 the word signifying a physician is 

 identical with that given to the 

 leech. From an old English ex- 

 change we gather the following 

 facts relative to the life and habits 

 of this species of aquatic worm, 

 which is indeed among the lowest 

 classes of the animal chain of be- 

 ing: 



"There are about thirteen or 

 fourteen species of the leech, some 

 of which are found in most parts 

 of the world; but the medicinal 

 species is best known, and abounds 



