of red, yellow, orange, and brown. When divested of its luxuriant
foliage, the buds of the next year appear like little spears, which
through the winter are covered with a fine glutinous gum, evidently
designed to protect the embryo shoots within, as an hybernaculum, from
the severe frosts of the climate, and which glisten in the cold sunshine
like diamonds. It has the strange property of performing the whole of
its vigorous shoot, nearly a yard long, in the short space of three
weeks, employing all the rest of the year in converting it into wood,
adding to its strength, and varying its beauty. The wood when sawn is
of the finest snowy whiteness. The tree is easily raised; indifferent
as to soil, climate, or situation; removed with safety, of quick growth,
thrives to a vast age and size; subject to no blight or disease; in the
earliest spring bursting its immense buds into that vigour, exuberance,
and beauty, which we have here feebly attempted to describe. The natives
said it was originally brought from the east of Asia, but grows freely
in any climate, and in their tongue its name is designated by a
combination of three words, signifying separately, a noble animal,
an elegant game, and a luscious kernel. Had Linnaeus seen this tree,
he would have assuredly contemplated it with delightful ecstacy, and
named it the _Ae'_sculus Hippocástanum.--_Magazine of Natural
History._

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