Identifier: romanceofplantli1907elli (find matches)
Title: The romance of plant life, interesting descriptions of the strange and curious in the plant world
Year: 1907 (1900s)
Authors: Elliot, George Francis Scott
Subjects: Plants
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott
Contributing Library: The LuEsther T Mertz Library, the New York Botanical Garden
Digitizing Sponsor: The LuEsther T Mertz Library, the New York Botanical Garden

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ould suppose. The Jupiter oakin the forest of Fontainebleau is supposed to be 700 yearsold. Another oak which was cut down at Bordya, in theBaltic provinces of Russia, was supposed to be about 1000years old. Other millennial trees are or were another oakand two chestnuts: the oak grew in the Ardennes, thechestnuts still flourish, one at Sancerre (France), and theother the famous specimen on Mount Etna. There arealso eight olive trees in the garden of Gethsemane atJerusalem, which are certainly 1000 years old, and were,according to tradition, in existence in the time of JesusChrist. And yet all these trees are mere infants compared toAdansons Baobab and the Dragon tree of Orotava. Thecelebrated traveller alluded to visited the Cape Verde islandsin 1749 and found inscriptions made by English travellerson the trunk 300 years before his time. From the growthsince then, he calculated that some of these trees were about6000 years of age, and they were 27 feet in diameter.^ 1 Bonnier, I.e.48
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AGE OF TREES The record is held by the Dragon tree of Orotava, in theCanary Islands. When the Spaniards landed in Teneriffe in 1402, itsdiameter was very nearly 42 feet. It was, however, greatlyinjured by a storm in 1827, and finally destroyed in 1851.(The wood was then made into walking-sticks and snuffboxes.)The age has been estimated at 10,000 years, or by otherauthorities at 8000 years only. The dragons blood * ofthe Canaries, a well-known remedy in the Middle Ages, wasnot, as is popularly supposed, derived from this tree, but wasobtained from a totally different plant. But there is a hazy tradition to the effect that the storyof the Dragon which guarded the golden fruit in the islandof the Hesperides was nothing but a garbled account of thisredoubtable veteran of the plant world. There is no particular advantage in growing to theseenormous heights and clinging to life in this way for hun-dreds and thousands of years. Nature seems to have foundthis out and preferred the ordinary p

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