HISTORIC TREES OF EMPIRE

Evening Star, Issue 25672, 21 December 1945, Page 2

HISTORIC TREES OF EMPIRE

WHERE CAPTAIN COOK TIED THE ENDEAVOUR [By E. R. Yahhaji.]' We are taking muck greater cars of our historic trees than in the past, and often considerable sums are spent in lengthening the life of veterans. Yet time takes its toll eventually, and many a famous tree is now nothing but a gaunt skeleton. The Earl of. Jersey, who owns one of the great houses of England at Osterley, Middlesex, has conceived a unique idea. - ; There he is beginning a collection of trees and plants with historical associations, and it is hoped to welcome to the garden cuttings from historical trees from abroad, especially from the dominions and the United States, as well as from the British.'lslands. An auspicious start has been- 1 made. The Benchers of Gray’s Inn, London, are giving a slip of the famous catalpa tree which Francis Bacon is reputed to have planted in their, garden. At Hampstead stands Keats’s Memorial House, and a cutting has been given from the mulberry tree which was certainly well known when the poet , lived there, and beside which, tradition says, he wrote the' ‘ Ode to a Nightingale.’ Lady Taprain has given some' shoots of the famous yew which stood in the courtyard of Whittingehame Tower in- the days of Black Douglas, and under whose shade Darnley’s murder was traditionally plotted. It .is also hoped to obtain an offspring of an apple tree which once grew in Sir Isaac Newton's garden at Woolthorpe. . Lord Bradford is giving a seedling of the celebrated Boscobel oak, which once sheltered Charles IL when he was fleeing from his enemies after his defeat at Worcester. Indeed; it would be quite possible to plant a whole wood with seedlings from oaks renowned in, English history, such as the one beneath which Wilberforce decided to make his stand against slavery* and ‘ Kelt’s oak, where the Norfolk rebel dispensed rough justice beneath its branches. Some of these oaks , already have descendants in various parts of the world. • .

At Osterley there is already a descendant of the- “ Napoleon ” willows on St. Helena. Tavo Avillows hang over , the Emperor’s. original grave. He asked to be buried beneath them. “In case,” he wrote two years, before his death, “ orders have been given for mv body to remain ,on this island, which I do not think, have me buried in tho shade of the willows where I used to. rest . . . near the spring where they ao to draw my water every day.’ontemporary letters from the island speak of Napoleon as having frequently breakfasted beneath these weeping wil*' lows on his first arrival;*and describe how at his funeral their branches were twisted Avith black cloth, and the ropes ■ - which were to lower his coffin into..the grave hung from them. The Osterley willow promises to be Avbrthily matched by a cypress which descended from a bough Avhich fell into the street from the Duke of Wellington’s funeral car.-

There are ; many other notable trees in the British Isles which might.claim, a place in" the collection, of historic tres.- : A Judas tree, a white magnolia, and a ginfco tree flourish to-day in a Hampshire garden, which were brought over 300 years ago from Tuscany by the first Lord Balfour of Burleigh. *ltwas iii the great thbt hortichltufal'curibsity y>hich‘ S'as to.'develop so tremendously in the following century to the • glory and 'fame of ; the English garden. All men’s eyes , were turned - towards Italy, out of which the Renaissance had come. They are , in the', garden of Wick House at Christ- • church, ...which also b oas ts the largest maidenhair = fern tree in Britain.

At Dulwich, near London, is an Indian beech tree, beneath \vhich,. tradition says, Shakespeare used to sit. In , 1938 Queen Mary went from the Palace of Holyroodhouse to the hamlet of Little France, just • inside the city boundary of Edinburgh, . where she planted a sycamore, tree by the roadside; The tree is intended to succeed a withered oak standing a'few yards away which, according to the local lore, was planted by Mary Queen of Scots, nearly 400 years ago,- when houses in the vicinity gave, shelter to her French servants.

In Norbury Park, Surrey, are jews 2,000 years old, beneath -which the Druids performed their rites, and where last century, the great novelist Meredith walked.,, It is interesting’ to learn . that Hardy’s, famous; / 4 Greenwood Tree ” still flourishes. This is an ancient beech Avhich is to-be fo.und adjacent-to the keeper’s cottage m YelloAvham (Yalbury) Wood. Unhappily, Milton’s famous elm at Chalfont St. Giles, Buckinghamshire, beneath which he used to sit, is no more. Age led to decav and so it had to be felled, but about 12ft of the trunk has been left ■as a memorial to him.. Another gaunt .elm once stood at: one, of the most -historic spots in England, but this has gone, too., J£ you want to find its site you must go to Old Sarum, the site of the original Salisbury, and about a mile from that city. Partly owing to , political unrest, and also, due to shortage of water, it was decided to move the city into the plain, and nothing blit a heap of mounds. remained. . Yet this, site continued to send a member to. Westminister from 1295 to 1831. The member was elected beneath the Parliamentary Tree, as it came to be .called., ,A stone marks where it stood, and bears this inscription: “ This, stone, erected by the. Corporation, of New Sarum, commemorates that near this spot, beneath the spreading branches 'of -a n elm tree, members of Parliament for the Borough- of Old Sarum; were in former times elected, most notable of whom was William Pitt, afterwards Earl of Chatham, who forged those links of Empire which now bind our felloAv-citizens: beyond the seas in .-.ffection to the Mother .Country. V . . Wherefore let this place .be; for ei’er enshrined in the hearts of our countrymen.” ■ It is impossible to obtain a descendant of that notable tree,, but it should be possible to obtain cuttings from two trees associated with Livingstone. Three years back a.fierce gale uprootedthe almond tree near* Kuruman, beneath which Livingstone proposed to Mary' (Moffat, - but- “ Livingstone s tree ” still stands on an/island oh the brink from Avhich he first, saw the v ictoria Falls. He cut his initials on it. Stanley and Livingstone also planted a mango tree where they met, ana .it has grown, so large it has split the concrete memorial built around it. In South Australia stand the. remains of, the gum - tree. beneath ’which the colony was proclaimed in 1836, and at Cooktowii can be seen the stump of the tree to which’Captain Cook tied the Endeavour.