ON THE ORIGIN OF WEEPING TREES. 
113 
become perfectly matured, which will be much in their favour in starting the 
following spring-. The Barringtonia is a native of the South of China, Java, 
Sumatra, the Moluccas, and of the Islands in the Pacific Ocean, at the mouths of 
rivers by the sea side. Its flowers are disposed in an erect thyrse of a purple and 
white colour, said to expand at night and fall at sunrise ; these are succeeded by a 
reddish brown drupe, the seeds of which, mixed with bait, are said to inebriate fish 
in the same manner as Cocculus indicus. 
AGE OF PLANTS. 
Some plants, such as the minute funguses, termed mould, only live a few hours, 
or at most a few days. Mosses, for the most part, live only one season, as do the 
garden plants called annuals, which die of old age as soon as they ripen their seeds. 
Some again, as the foxglove and the hollyhock, live for two years, occasionally pro- 
longed to three, if their flowering be prevented. 
Trees again, planted in a suitable soil and situation, live for centuries. Thus 
the olive-tree may live three hundred years ; the oak double that number ; the 
chestnut is said to have lasted for nine hundred and fifty years ; the dragon's blood 
tree of TenerifFe may be two thousand years old ; and Adanson mentions banians 
six thousand years old. 
When the wood of the interior ceases to afford room, by the closeness of its texture, 
for the passage of sap or pulp, or the formation of new vessels, it dies, and by all 
its moisture passing off into the younger wood, the fibres shrink, and are ultimately 
reduced to dust. The centre of the tree thus becomes dead, while the outer portion 
continues to live, and in this way trees may exist for many years before they perish. 
ON THE ORIGIN OF WEEPING TREES*. 
BY WILLIAM ANDERSON, CURATOR OF THE BOTANIC GARDEN AT CHELSEA. 
I HAVE never seen a printed report on the manner in which these difl'erent 
varieties of trees have been discovered ; for example, the weeping oak. The 
cause of this neglect may be, that persons finding such varieties, either do not 
examine their origin, or keep it secret from personal interest. The following observa- 
tions, therefore, may not prove uninteresting. Fascicles, or bundles of shoots, are 
often observed on trees, which resemble a bird's nest at a distance, but when examined 
they prove to be a cluster of small twigs. Such bundles are observed on different 
trees, but more frequently on the white or common birch tree, {Betula alha.y Z.) 
In the year 1808, 1 observed such a bundle on a Cratcegus, Mespilus, and Oxyacantha^ 
and grafted young thorns with them, which, in two or three years, produced 
beautiful branches. About the same time I observed such a bundle on Ulmus cam- 
* From " The Gardener's Magazine." 
VOL. Ill NO. XXIX. Q 
