Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 December 1884 — Some Historical Trees. [ARTICLE]

Some Historical Trees.

On the Island of Teneriffe is situated the town of Orotaya, formerly the capital and court of the principal kingdom of the Guanohes. It is everywhere known as the place where grew the famous “Dragoq Tree, ” celebrated for its great antiquity. Humboldt considered it to have been five or sic thousand years old. Sir John Herschel supposed it to be the oldest tree in the world. Other writers make it so old as to have witnessed some of the last revolutions which the surface of the planet underwent previous to the advent of man. Its immense hollow trunk was used centuries ago, as temple, by the Guanches. In the beginning of the fifteenth century, it was dedicated by the Portuguese to Christian worship. It subsequently suffered greatly from natural causes as well as from the vandalism of curiosity-hunters. In the beginning of the present century, a storm deprived this tree of part of its crown; and, in 1867, a terrible hurricane which swept over this part of the island threw it down, and completely destroyed it. Pliny states that in his time there was in Lycia a .plane-tree, in the trunk of which was a vast grotto eighty-one feet in circumference, the whole extent of which had been hung with a natural tapestry of velvet moss. The Governor of the province, on one occasion, gave a supper in it to eighteen guests of his suite, and, after the repast, transformed it into a dormitory, where they comfortably passed the night. Men were not inclined to believe this account, but it has been fully confirmed by modern travelers. De Candolle relates that there still exists near Constantinople an enormous lime-tree, the trunk of which equals in size that of Pliny’s plane-tree. It is 150 feet in circumference, and presents a cavity of proportionate dimensions. ' The Rev. J. Ray, an English clergyman, who wrote a valuable botanical work, speaks of an oak existing in his day in Germany, which was of such proportions that it had been transformed into a citadel; and another tree of the same kind, still growing in Normandy, has in its hollow an altar dedicated "to the Virgin, and is called the chapel oak of Allouville, where on certain days mass is said. Pouchet says he has seen on the banks of the Bosphorus plane-trees, the trunks of which were pierced with enormous cavities. He says, “In the neighborhood of Smyrna, there is one of these trees celebrated for its size and antiquity. The stem, which is hollowed right through, is spread widely out at the base, and represents three columns, which converge toward each other, forming a sort of porch beneath which a man on horseback can pass easily.” Evelyn and Loudon, in their learned works on forests, have represented several other trees, which, like the Plantanus of Smyrna, present openings through which a knight completely equipped could pass freely. But the wonder of the vegetable kingdom, in respect to its gigantic dimensions, is the famous chestnut-tree growing on the lower slopes of Mount Etna, called the “Chestnut of a Hundred Horses.” Count Borcli, who measured the trunk very exactly, gives it a circumference of 160 feet, and within its immense hollow has been built a house which shelters a shepherd and his Hock. The same traveler maintains that it owes its name merely to the fact that fifty horses could be placed within its trunk, and fifty round about it. Some botanists have thought that this stupendous tree was made up of several individuals of the same species, but the Canon Recupero had it dug around, and saw that the five trunks end in one single colossal root.