T r e e of L I F E.
The DESCRIPTION and PLACE.
HE Tree of Life is a succulent Plant, consisting of one only strait stem, on the top of which is a Pistillum or Apex, at some times Glandiform and resembling a May-Cherry, tho' at others, more like the Nut of the Avellana or Filbeard-Tree.
Its fruits, contrary to most others, grow near the Root; they are usually no more than two in number, their bigness somewhat exceeding that of an ordinary Nutmeg both contained in one strong Siliqua, or purse; which, together with the whole root of the plant, is commonly thick set with numerous Fibrilla or capillary Tendrils.
The tree is of slow growth, and requires time to bring it to perfection, rarely seeding to any purpose before the fifteenth year; when the fruits coming to good maturity, yield a viscous Juice or balmy succus, which being from time to time discharged at the Pistillum is mostly bestow'd upon the open Calyx's of the Frutex Vulvaria or flow'ring Shrub usually spreading under the shade of this tree, and whose parts are by a wonderful mechanism adapted to receive it. The ingenious Mr. Richard Bradley is of opinion, the Frutex is hereby impregnated, and then first begins to bear; he therefore accounts this Succus the Farina foecundans of the plant: and the learned Leonhard Fucksius, in his Historia Stirpium insigniorum, observes the greatest sympathy between this tree and shrub, They are, says he, of the same genus, and do best in the same bed, the Vulvaria itself being indeed no other than a female Arbor Vitæ.
It is produced in most Countries, tho' it thrives more in some than others, where it also increases to a larger size. The height here in England rarely passes nine, or at the most, eleven inches, and that chiefly in Kent, whereas in Ireland, it comes to far greater dimensions, is so good, that many of the natives entirely subsist upon it, and when transplanted, have been sometimes known to raise good houses with single plants of this sort.
As the Irish soil is accounted the best, others are as remarkably bad for its cultivation; and the least and worst in the world are said to be about Harborough and the Forest of Sherard.
The stem seems to be of the sensitive tribe, tho' herein differing from the more common Sensitives; that whereas they are known to shrink and retire from even the gentlest touch of a Lady's hand, this rises on the contrary, and extends itself when it is so handled.
In winter it is not easy to raise these trees without a hot bed; but in warmer weather they stand well in the open air.
In the latter season they are subject to become weak and flaccid, and want support; for which purpose some gardeners have thought of splintering them up with birchen Twigs, which has seem'd of some service for the present, tho' the plants have very soon come to the same or a more drooping state than before.
The late ingenious Mr. Motteux thought of restoring a fine plant he had in this condition, by tying it up with a Tomex or cord made of the bark of the Vitex, or Hempen-Tree: but whether he made the ligature too straight, or that the nature of the Vitex is really in itself pernicious, he quite kill'd his plant thereby; which makes this universally condemn'd, as a dangerous experiment.
Some Virtuosi have thought of improving their trees for some purposes, by taking off the Nutmegs, which is however a bad way; they never seed after, and are good for little more than making whistles of, which are imported every year from Italy, and sell indeed at a good price.
Some other curious Gentlemen have endeavour'd to inoculate their plants on the stock of the Medlar and that with a manure of human Ordure, but this has never been approv'd; and I have known some tree brought to a very ill end by such management.
The natural soil is certainly the best for their propagation; and that is in hollow places, that are warm and near salt water, best known by their producing the same sort of Tendrils as are observ'd about the roots of the Arbor itself. Some cautions however are very necessary, especially to young Botanists; and first, to be very diligent in keeping their trees clean and neat; a pernicious sort of insect, not, unlike a Morpione or Cimex, being very subject to breed amongst the Fibrillæ, which, if not taken heed of, and timely destroy'd, proves often of very dangerous consequence.
Another caution, no less useful, we have from that excellent and judicious Botanist Mr. Humphrey Bowen, to beware of a poisonous species of Vulvaria, too often mistaken for the wholesome one, and which, if suffer'd too near our trees, will very greatly endanger their well-being. He tells us, in the 12th volume of his large abridgment of la Quintinye, that before he had acquir'd his judgment and experience, some of his plants have often been sufferers through this mistake; and he has seen a tall thriving tree, by the contact: only of this venomous shrub, become porrose, scabiose, and cover'd with fungous Excrescences not unlike the fruits of the Ficus sylvestris in which case the succus also has lost both its colour and vertue; and the tree itself has so much partaken of the nature of the venomous shrub that had hurt it, that itself has become venomous, and spread the poison through a whole Plantation.
These distempers of a tree of the greatest use and value, have employ'd the labours of the most eminent Botanists and Gardeners, to seek out remedies for them: In which, however, none have succeeded like the celebrated Dr. Misaubin who from his profound knowledge in Botany has composed a most elaborate work upon all the things that can happen, both to the Arbor Vitæ and Vulvaria also: There he has taught a certain cure for all these evils; and, what is most wonderful, has even found out a way of making the most venomous Vulvaria itself wholesome, which he practises daily, to the satisfaction of all that apply to him.
These venomous Vulvaria are but too common in most gardens about London; there are many in St. James's Park, and more in the celebrated gardens at Vaux-hall over the water.
The NAMES and VIRTUES.
Besides the common name of Arbor Vitæ, a very learned Philosopher and great Divine would have it call'd, Arbor Scientiæ boni & mali; believing, upon very good grounds, this is the tree which grew in the middle of the garden of Eden, and whose fruits were so alluring to our first mother. Others would have it call'd the Mandrake of Leah, persuaded it is the same whose juice made the before barren Rachel a joyful mother of children.
The learned Madame D'Acier in her notes upon Homer contends it should be called Nepenthes. She gives many reasons why it certainly is that very plant, whose fruits the Egyptian queen recommended to Helen, as a certain cure for pain and grief of all sorts, and which She ever after kept by her as her most precious jewel, and made use of as a Panacæa upon all occasions.
The great Dr. Bentley calls it more than once Machæra Herculis, having proved out of the fragments of a Greek Poet, that of this tree was made that club with which the hero is said to have overcome the fifty wild daughters of Thespius, but which Queen Omphale afterwards reduced to a distaff. Others have thought the celebrated Hesperian trees were of this sort; and the very name of Poma Veneris, frequently given by Authors to the fruits of this tree, is a sufficient proof these were really the Apples for which three Goddesses contended in so warm a manner, and to which the Queen of beauty had undoubtedly the strongest title.
The vertues are so many, a large volume might be wrote of them. The juice taken inwardly cures the green-sickness and other infirmities of the like sort, and is a true specific in most disorders of the fair sex. It indeed often causes tumours in the umbilical region; but even those being really of no ill consequence, disperse of themselves in a few Months.
It chears the heart, and exhilarates the mind, quiets jars, feuds and discontents, making the most churlish tempers surprizingly kind and loving. Nor have private persons only been the better for this reconciling vertue, but whole states and kingdoms, nay, the greatest empires in the world have often received the benefit of it; the most destructive wars have been ended, and the most friendly treaties been produced, by a right application of this universal medicine among the chief of the contending parties.
If any person is desirous to see this excellent and wonderful plant in good perfection, he may meet with it at the aforementioned Mr Bowen's garden at Lambeth, who calls it The Silver-Spoon Tree; and is at all times ready to oblige his friends with the sight of it.
