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Show 290 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS. Mexico, bd. i. s. 153.) The two fine Ahuahuetes near Chapultepec, which I have often seen, and which are probably the surviving rem· nants of an ancient garden or pleasure-ground of Montezuma, measure (according to Burkart's account of his travels, bd. i. s. 268, a work which otherwise contains much information) only 36 and 38 English feet in circumference; not in diameter, as has often been erroneously asserted. The Buddhists in Ceylon venerate the gigantic trunk of the sacred fig-tree of Anourahdepoura. The Indian fig-tree or Banyan, of which the branches take root round the parent stem, forming, as Onesicritus well described, a leafy canopy resembling a many-pillared tent, often attain a thickness of 28 (29t English) feet diameter. (Lassen, Indische Alterthumskunde, bd. i. s. 260.) On the Bombax ceiba, see early notices of the time of Columbus, in Bembo's Historire Venetre, 1551, fol. 83. Among oak trees, of those which have been accurately measured, the largest in Europe is no doubt that near the town of Saintes, in the Departement de la Charente Inferieure, on the road to Oozes. This tree, which is 60 (64 English) feet high, has a diameter of 27 feet 8t inches (29t English feet) near the ground; 2H (almost 23 English) feet five feet higher up; and where the great boughs commence 6 Parisian feet (6 feet 5 inches English). In the dead part of the trunk a little chamber has been arranged, from 10 feet 8 inches to 12 feet 9 inches wide, and 9 feet 8 incb.es high (all English measure), with a semicircular bench cut out of the fresh wood. A window gives light to the interior, so that the sides of the chamber (which is closed with a door) are clothed with ferns and lichens, giving it a pleasing appearance. Judging by the size of a small piece of wood which has been cut out above the door, and in which the marks of 200 annular rings have been counted, the oak of Saintes would be between 1800 and 2000 years old. (Annales de la Societe d' Agriculture de la Rochelle, 1843, p. 380.) In the wild rose-tree of the crypt of the Cathedral of Hildesheim, said to be a thousand years old, it is the root only, and not the stem, which is eight centuries old, according to accurate information derived from ancient and trustworthy original documents, for the knowledge of which I am indebted to the kindness of StadtgerichtsAssessor Romer. A legend connects the rose-tree with a vow made |
