328 
DECIDUOUS TREES. 
trunk is three and a half to four feet in diameter, and grows in a 
twisted form to a height of twelve to fifteen feet, with an appear- 
ance as if an immense weight were pressing it down. The 
branches cover an area nearly a hundred feet in diameter. Its 
history is curious. Some sixty years ago the baron’s gardener was 
planting an avenue of beech trees, and the baron, observing a very 
crooked specimen, directed to have it thrown out ; but the gar- 
dener planted it in a corner of the grounds little visited, where it 
grew to be one of the most beautiful and singular freaks of sylvan 
nature. 
The illustration, Fig. 104, at the head of this page, is a portrait 
of the weeping beech growing on the grounds of the Parsons nur- 
sery at Flushing, and is probably the finest in this country. It is 
