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New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 191, 24 November 1876, Page 9

The following information on the "Tree of the Virgin Mother," which we find in a European exchange cannot fail to be of interest to the readers of the 'Catholic Review/ It is to bo found at the village of Metaricli, a few miles distant from Cairo, and in th-i immediate neighborhood of the ancient Heliopolis, whose site is now occupied only by a few scattered ruins and a picturesque monolith of over fifty yards high. Rear this monolith is the present village of Metarich, aii old heap of hoiuo3 in a state of ruin, presenting a most wntehed appearance, but surrounded, however, by large and well cultivated gardens, in the centre of which rises, with an imposing appearance, the la' ge tree of the Virgin (Segar el Mariam), an old sycamore, under whose shade tradition has it that the Holy Family reposed at the time of their flight into Egypt. This sycamore is very large. Seven men could hardly span the lower part of its trunk its age is unknown, but by the concentric circles which a section of one of its largest branches, which has been detached from the trunk for some years post, presents, we may conclude that it has withstood the storms of several centuries. The present Viceroy of Egypt, at the time of the inauguration of the Suez Canal, presented this sycamore to France, in accordance with the desire expres.-ed by the Empress Eugenic, who went to see it. She had it surrounded with an elegant railing and appointed two guardians to protect it and take (are of the lillies and geraniums which she caused to be planted around it. These guar jians are still paid by France. This tree is held in great veneration, not only by the Christians, but eveu by the Arabs Natives and foreigners gather its leaves to which tbey atttribute therapeutic virtues,