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Black Caesar's Clan : a Florida Mystery Story by Albert Payson Terhune
page 103 of 264 (39%)

"That?" she queried. "Oh, that's another of Milo's prides.
It's an Egyptian fig. 'Ficus Something or
other.' Isn't it beautiful? But it isn't a century old. It
isn't more than fifteen years old. It grows tremendously
fast. Milo has been trying to interest the authorities in
Miami in planting lines of them for shade trees and having
them in the city parks. There's nothing more beautiful. And
nothing, except the Australian pine, grows faster .... There's
another of Milo's delights," she continued, pointing to the
left. "It's ever so old. The natives around here call it 'The
Ghost Tree.'"

They had been moving in a wide circle through the groves.
Now, approaching the house from the other side, they came out
on a grassy little space on the far edge of the lawn. In the
center of the space stood a giant live-oak towering as high as
a royal palm, and with mighty boughs stretching out in vast
symmetry on every side. It was a true forest monarch. And
like many another monarch. it was only a ghost of its earlier
grandeur.

For from every outflung limb and from every tiniest twig hung
plumes and festoons and stalactites of gray moss. For perhaps
a hundred years the moss had been growing thus on the giant
oak, first in little bunches and trailers that were scarce
noticeable and which affected the forest monarch's appearance
and health not at all.

Then year by year the moss had grown and had taken toll of the
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