Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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We Were Told, That The Trunk Of This Tree, Which Is
Mentioned In Several Very Ancient Documents As Marking The
Boundaries Of A Field, Was As Gigantic In The Fifteenth Century As
It Is At The Present Time.
Its height appeared to us to be about 50
or 60 feet; its circumference near the roots is 45 feet.
We could
not measure higher, but Sir George Staunton found that, 10 feet
from the ground, the diameter of the trunk is still 12 English
feet; which corresponds perfectly with the statement of Borda, who
found its mean circumference 33 feet 8 inches, French measure. The
trunk is divided into a great number of branches, which rise in the
form of a candelabrum, and are terminated by tufts of leaves, like
the yucca which adorns the valley of Mexico. This division gives it
a very different appearance from that of the palm-tree.
Among organic creations, this tree is undoubtedly, together with
the Adansonia or baobab of Senegal, one of the oldest inhabitants
of our globe. The baobabs are of still greater dimensions than the
dragon-tree of Orotava. There are some which near the root measure
34 feet in diameter, though their total height is only from 50 to
60 feet. But we should observe, that the Adansonia, like the
ochroma, and all the plants of the family of bombax, grow much more
rapidly* than the dracaena, the vegetation of which is very slow.
(* It is the same with the plane-tree (Platanus occidentalis) which
M. Michaux measured at Marietta, on the banks of the Ohio, and
which, at twenty feet from the ground, was 15.7 feet in diameter.
- "Voyage a l'Ouest des Monts Alleghany" 1804 page 93.
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