2470

ARBORETUM AND I'RUTICKTUM

PART III

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Remarkable Cypresses. Perhaps the oldest tree of which there is any recordin the world is the cypress of Soma, or Somma, in Lombardy . This celebratedtree, of which Jig. 2325. is a portrait (from an original drawing kindly sent to usby Signor Manetti of Monza), is generally supposed to have been planted theyear of the birth of Jesus Christ , and on this account is treated with great re-verence by the inhabitants of that part of Lombardy where it grows ; but theAbbe Beleze informs us that there is an ancient chronicle extant at Milan,which proves that it was a tree in the time of Julius Ctesar, B. c. 42. (See p. 169 )