The Age of Trees.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXVII, Issue 14, 6 October 1906, Page 30

The Age of Trees.

A correspondent of the “Times” has found a plane-tree on the island of Cos which, he’suggests, may be. 2400 years old at least, for there is & marble seat under it, and the inhabitants declare with one voice that this was used by Hippocrates. Another correspondent thinks the evidence insufficient. The oldest tree with which he himself is acquainted claims no more than 1100 years, and it cannot prove so much. Of course it cannot; there is no register of births ond deaths for trees, and when some famous specimen falls, interested persons are apt- to set a young one in its place and say nothing about it. After a certain time the innocent public accepts the. substitute in good faith. But there is one case where the age alleged, 2151 years, or, by the latest correction, 2194 years, may also be accepted —it is a long way off. unfortunately. In 288 8.C., or 245 8.C., King Tissa begged a cutting of the 80-tree at Anuradhapura, under which Buddha slept on a great occasion. No one dared to mutilate the venerable relic; but..it settled the difficulty by casting a branch of its own accord into a golden jar. Prince Mahinda was going as a missionary to Ceylon, and he took the blessed sapling with him. under charge of his Royal sister. They “planted it out” at Anuradhapura, where the tourist may behold it flourishing, a mighty trunk, at the present day. But is it the real article? That the story is true nobody disputes, but in two thousand years half a dozen young 80-trees have had time to grow mighty. The Chinese pilgrim, Fa llien, describes the sacred object he saw in the fourth century, and more than one point he noted may be identified in the existing. But they are not remarkable. Bir Emerson Tennant looked into tha evidence, and he wrote: “Estimates of the age of other old trees in the world are matters of conjecture, which, however ingenious, must be purely inferential; whereas the age of this 80-tree is a matter of record, its conservancy has been an object of solicitude to successive dynasties,’and the story of its vicissitudes has been preserved in a series of continuous chronicles among the most authentic handed down to mankind. Its green old age would seem almost to verify the prophecy given when It was plant-, cd—that it would flourish and be greeu for ever.” Science may be. able to pronounce definitely before long.