ee 
AGE OF 
pansion which will be noticed in our article on 
GrowrH: which see. In any circumstances, a 
cautious observer will state his inference respect- 
ing a tree’s age to be only a well-founded conjec- 
ture, not an actual determination. 
The rule for conjecturing the age of ligneous 
plants of the monocotyledonous or endogenous 
class is even more indefinite than the rule for the 
dicotyledonous class. No criteria by zones or 
diameter here exist, and the only indications of 
progressive age are circular marks on the exterior 
‘| of the trunk, which have been left at intervals 
by the decay of the fibres of the annual leaves,— 
and even this occurs but partially in any species, 
and are totally wanting in some,—for in the young 
parts of plants, they are often too slight to be 
discernible, and in the old parts, they are fre- 
quently effaced. The true rule, therefore, applies 
rather to the height of the plant, than to the 
character or appearance of its stem. When any 
individual plant is the subject of investigation, 
the inquirer ascertains the height of some other 
individual of the same species whose age is known 
to him, or adopts its height as ascertained by 
some other person, and then uses the height and 
the age of this plant and the height of the plant 
under investigation as proportionals for deter- 
mining the latter’s age. The result is only a 
rough guess; but it is the best that can be ob- 
tained. When the wood of the interior of trees 
becomes so close in its texture that the passage of 
sap or pulp is prevented, or the formation of new 
vessels cannot be admitted, then it dies; and as 
all its moisture passes off into the younger wood, 
the fibres shrink, and are ultimately reduced into 
dust. The centre of the tree loses its vitality, 
while the outer parts continue to exist, and may 
thus live for many years before a total dissolution 
takes place. Yet Decandolle on this point says: 
—‘“ As there is formed every year a ligneous de- 
posit, and generally new organs, there is not 
among the vegetable creation place for that 
hardness or rigidity, that destruction of old and 
permanent organs, which constitutes properly 
the death of old age, and, consequently, that being 
the case, trees can only die from accidental causes. 
Trees do not die from age in the true sense of the 
word ; they have no fixed period of existence ; 
and, consequently, some may be found that have 
arrived at an extraordinary age.” 
Some instances of remarkable longevity in trees, 
both in our own country and in other lands, have 
been noted by naturalists, and are even, in some 
degree, known to the reading public. An elm 
tree, which grew at Morges on the banks of the 
lake of Geneva, and which fell down in 1827, mea- 
sured about 18 feet in diameter at the base, and 
had 335 zones or concentric layers. An elm which 
formerly stood on Binsey-common measured 18 
feet in diameter near the ground, and probably 
was an older tree than even the elm of Morges. 
An ivy plant, growing at Gigean, near Montpel- 
lier, mas computed in 1814 by Decandolle to be 
PLANTS. 
433 years of age. A lime tree, growing at Trons 
in the Grisons, was a celebrated plant in 1424, 
and had a circumference of 51 feet in 1798, and 
could not, at the latter date, be less than 580 
years of age. A lime tree, at Neustadt in Wur- 
temburg, is known to have been a large tree 
in 1229, and had a circumference 37% feet at six 
feet from the ground in 1831, and was computed, 
at the latter date, to have an age of between 700 
and 800 years. A walnut tree, which grew at 
St. Nicholas in Lorraine, furnished a slab of 25 
feet in breadth, and of proportional length and 
thickness, and is computed by Decandolle to 
have been not less than 900 years of age. A cele- 
brated chestnut tree, growing on Mount Aitna, 
has a circumference at the base of 160 feet ac- 
cording to the minimum statement, and 180 feet 
according to the maximum statement ; yet is re- 
garded rather as a natural amassment of several 
contiguous stems, than as strictly a single tree. 
A chestnut tree, growing at Sancerra, measures 
37 feet in circumference, was called the great 
chestnut tree six centuries ago, and is computed 
by Decandolle to be not less than 1,000 years of 
age. A chestnut tree, which grows in Lord 
Ducie’s park at Tortworth, was called the great 
chestnut of Tortworth in the reign of John, and 
is believed to have been growing in the reign. of 
William the Conqueror. Some cedars now grow- 
ing on Lebanon are computed to be at least 1200 
years old; and seven which continued to grow 
there in 1789, were believed to be contemporaries 
of the wondrous, ancient forest of cedars, which 
supplied timber for the temple of Jerusalem, and 
were ‘ the glory of Lebanon.’ An oak, which was 
noticed by Evelyn as growing at a place called | 
Rivelin, measured 36 feet in circumference at a 
foot from the base, and is computed to have been 
864 years of age. An oak, which was felled in 
1812 in the Polish province of Samogitia, mea- | 
sured 39 feet in circumference near the base, and 
is believed to have been at least 1,000 years of 
age. An oak, which was felled in the Ardennes 
in 1824, contained within its trunk some coins 
and medals of the ancient Samnites, and is sup- 
posed, from that circumstance, to have been at 
least 15 or 16 centuries of age. The celebrated 
oak of Calthorpe, near Wetherby, measures 78 
feet in circumference close to the ground, and is 
computed to have an antiquity of upwards of 
2,000 years. Among other individual oaks in 
Great Britain, distinguished for their size and 
their great age, are the oak of Elderslie, the birth- 
place of Sir William Wallace, in the vicinity of 
Paisley ; the Torwood oak, in the neighbourhood 
of Stirling, another relic of Scotland’s champion, 
of which some noticeable remains existed within 
these few years; the oak of William Rufus, in the 
New Forest in Southamptonshire; Queen Eliza- 
beth’s oak, at Heveningham, in Suffolk ; the Whin- 
field oak, in the vicinity of Appleby ; Fisher’s oak, 
on the road to Tunbridge; and Herne’s oak, in 
Windsor forest. ‘The yew trees of Ripon in York- 
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