TREES IN HISTORY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 120, 24 May 1939, Page 10

TREES IN HISTORY.

THE TEN MOST IMPORTANT.

Just as critiee select the ten best films or books or the year, so has science come around to compiling a "hall of fame" list of the ten most important trees of history. The basis (in which the roster was judged was the longterm service of a tree, the degree to which the world would suffer from its absence, and the degree of it«s use. Standing well on top of the list are the palms —the date and the coconut, in that order, according to Henry F. Clapper, secretary of the American Society of Foreetere. For centuries the date palm tree was the chief source of wealth for Arabia. There are those who sa;t that the great city of Bagdad would never have been anything to speak of had it not been for the date tree, which is so often mentioned in the Arabian Nights stories.

Its uses as fruit, oil, wood and fibre gave it an astonishing value to the development of mankind. It was grown in ancient Egypt and Babylonia; it was mentioned by the (Jreek father of history, Herodotus, and it is to-day, grown in North Africa, France, Italy, Southern California and China. Though the prize for first place goes to the date, the coconut is not far behind, eays Mr. Capper in his report in "Nature Magazine." Of Malay origin, it hae been planted for 3000 v cars' and now shades most tropical eoaets.

Third among the tree aristocrats ie also a nll t—the almond. Mentioned in the third century before Christ by Theophrashw, an undent naturalist, it is still of fabulom value. The almond, strange to say. is a member of the roso family. Tho app> tree comes fourth. During the Xew Stone Ace. about 15,0(10 years a :o. it was eaten by the Lake Dwellers of Italy and Switzerland, though it. pcrlinp*, originated in Asia .Minor. Science has not vH traoed it back to Eden.

Fifth comes the fig tree, known to tho ancient firoeke; sixtli is the white mulberry, which might be said to have been '"born" in India and Mongolia. Since ancient times prown in China, its leaves are the chief food of the silkworms. Tbe olivp tree ie seventh, and its fruit and oil are important in dry countries. A thousand years before Christ, Homer's "Odvssey" mentioned it.

Mr. flipper places the lemon tree eighth. Out of India, it ha» Ikkmi cultivated about 2">i)() years. The cinchona tree, source of <|uinine. a basic drug in medicine, prows in Tern and Bolivia. Introduced into Europe about three centuries ago, this tree has been in great demand ever since. It is given ninth place. What may prove most unexpected to most people is the fact that the rubber tree is placed last in the list of the "ten best." fiut in the long run of history, it has been useless, having been cultivated for less than a century and widely grown for less than forty yeare.