The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1906-12-27
A LoNo-LIvED FAMILY.
Story Of Trees Thousands Of Years
Old and Stn Growing.

10 tne GATE OIL ST. Luke---the yew
trees of Braburn, Kent $4,000 years
old; Darley Churchyard, Derby
shire (2096 years., and Fortingal,
Aberfeldy. Perthshlre .(25O0-26OO
years); while other long-lived Brit
ish yews are those of Crowhurst. Sur
rey (1400 years); Gasford, North
Wales (1400 years., and Fountains
Abbey, Ripon, Yorkshire (l2OO);
these instances and figures being
taken from Humboldt's Views of
Nature
Pausanias tells us that the reputed
Oldest trees still living in his time
were the willows in the sanctuary of
Hera, at Samos, the oaks of Dodona,
the olive of the Acropolis OF Athens,
the olives of Delos, the laurels of
Syria, and Oldest of all, the plane
tree of Caphyae, called after Meme
laus because they relate" that when
he mustered his army to sail away
against Troy he planted 1t there by
the spring above the city for a me-
mortal unto all generations to come,
Pausanias also tells us that there was
still preserved the remains of the
wood Of "the beautiful plane tree
whence flowed limpid water" re-
ferred to by Homer. Altogether the
Itinerary of Greece" contains six
teen references to celebrated plane
trees, but it nowhere mentions the
Paeonian plane tree of Cos. although
1t refers in detail to the worship
there of Aesculapius and to the olive
trees that grew about his altars. AS
for st. Luke (whose name is of Latin
origin) having rested in this plane
tree grove, the suggestion too closely
resembles the association of this
Apostle with "St. Luke's summer"
and the more that there Is the simi-
lar tradition of his having lodged for
while in the hollow of the plane
tree of Megaspelaeon in Arcadia and
painted the ikon of the Blessed Vir.
gin Mary in the little chapel conse.
Grated in its trunk to the Panagis
Plataniotissa.
There is no reason to doubt the
antiquity of the plane trees of Cos.
Those. the seven brothers" of Blu.
yukdere, "the great valley" on the
Bosporus, are said to be 5000 years
old; and Darius and Xerxes may
have sat in their shade. Xerxes,
when a days march from Sardis,
passed plane tree so beautiful that
he presented it with golden orna.
ments and placed 1t in the custody
of one of his guard of "Immortals; /"
and the traveller, w. j. Hamilton,
found its gigantic trunk in 1857
still throwing out some thin leaved
branches. The fact is that the plane
tree, Platanus orientalis, has ever
been held in the highest veneration
and worship throughout anterior
Asia and the Levant. 1t was to the
eastern Aryas what the oak was to
the western, and the pine to the
northern Aryas. 1t was the tree OF
life" of the Achaemenian Persians,
the Armenians, and apparently of the
Pelopidae. 1t is native of the Cas-
plan shores of Persia and Asia Minor,
and thence gradually spread into the
countries of the Mediterranean
shores of Europe 1t is the chestnut
of Genesis, XXX, 81, and Ezekiel,
xxi. 8. its Hebrew name Armon,
naked" referring to the annual seal.
Ing of its bark, natural process OF
dry washing, to which undoubtedly
] II owes its ever youthful freshness
and beauty, and its miraculous long.
svity and reputation as a tree OF
| life." 1t is named once by Homer,
as already shown, and by Theognis
(S7O). The finest description of il
is given by Plato "Phaedrus" (229),
Theophrastus names 1t over and oveJ
again, and once or twice with inter
esting circumstance. Pliny traces its
migration through southern Europe
from the Isles of Diomedes, off Apu
liza, to the land of the Morini"-
'Extremique hominum Morini" thu
Pas de Calaisl
The Coan plane is one of the fines
in anterior Asia and its wide extend
ed branches cover the whole market
place of Stanchio. They have beer
supported from century to century
by marble columns taken from the
, culapius." and these columns are
now so completely embedded in the
bark of the immense boughs they up
hold as to appear a perfectly natural
feature of the wonderful tree. One
frequently observes a like phenome
non in India, and / once found IN
the very heart of the trunk of
strenuous pipal (Bo) tree in the Vic.
tcria Gardens, Bombay, the carved
teak wood column (now in the ASH
attic Society's rooms in the town.
halD of temple of hanumrn, as
fresh and sharp in it's carved work
as on the day 1t was set up, at least
200 years previous to its midnight
discovery by the late Professor Buh-
ler and myself.-George Birdwood, in
London Times
Clogs Worn by English Workmen.