TREES AS TEMPLES.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 20 December 1924, Page 16

TREES AS TEMPLES.

VEXERAM.® FOREST GIANTS

THE GROWTH OF CENTURIES

V\ hic-h is the oldest tree in the worldr 1 If one may belie,e legenus, there is a tree in Ceylon which is well into its tewnty-second century. It started life as a cutting of the Do tree under which Buddha sat in the sixth century b.C Very old, too, is ‘the Homa e.-.p.ess in Lomuaidy, which' is known to have existed forty years before the birth of Christ; wniie, according to the late Dean Stanley' eight of the. original olives may still be seen in the Garden of Gethsemane. Hindus are .particularly j' om ) G f the stately ban., an,* and many of these trees are used as temples and have become famous. Ihe great cubbeerburr, on the banks of the Neroudda, is sup-: posed to be that described by ail admiral of Alexander the Great as being capable ol sheltering an army under its b.anches. • ■ -■ ■ ■

The venerable dragon-tree of Orota. a, in r j eneriffe, was reverenced for its antiquity by the extinct nation of tlie Gaunehes, and the adventurous conquerors of the Canaries found it little less colossal and cavernous.:in. 1402 than did the naturalist. Humboldt in Ixo9. Unfortunately, it was destroyed oy storm in the year 1871. In Britain the yews are the most ancient living things. Tlie yew at Crow hurst, in Surrey, is of enormous dimensions. It is hollow and fitted with seats inside. It was just as remarkable for size and age in -the 1-eien of Charles ll' as it is to-day. and most probably goes., back to Roman Times. Tlie one in Selborne churchyard is said to be older than the church, and there was a church .there in Saxon times. -.The Royal Oak of BosCobel -which befriended Charles II may or may not he the tree now pointed out, hut in anv case it is.a mere stripling to other oidvs here and there in Britain. WyclifFe preached and Queen Elizabeth dmed, so it is said, under the Crouch Oak at Addle-stone] The Cowthorpe Dak. in Yorkshire, ]> supposed to date T-mu Saxon times, and it was onl v in I R 4B that tlie’-e fell the tree against which, according to tradition, King EJ’U'md was martyred. How old the .Major Oak in Sherwood Forest is no one knows, but there are a. good many trees in its neighborhood which must 'approximate to a thousand vee’-s.' One of them is called “Bobin Hood’s Larder.”