Popular tradition has everywhere preserved the remembrance of a certain _Arbor secco_, which, according to Marco Polo, Frate Odorico, and the Book of Sidrach, existed in the East. This _Arbor secco_ of the Christians is the veritable Tree of the Sun of the ancient pagans. Marco Polo calls the tree the Withered Tree of the Sun, and places it in the confines of Persia; Odorico, near Sauris. According to Maundevile, the tree had existed at Mamre from the beginning of the world. It was an Oak, and had been held in special veneration since the time of Abraham. The Saracens called it _Dirpe_, and the people of the country, the Withered Tree, because from the date of the Passion of Our Lord, it has been withered, and will remain so until a Prince of the West shall come with the Christians to conquer the Holy Land: then “he shalle do synge a masse undir that dry tree, and than the tree shalle waxen grene and bere bothe fruyt and leves.” Fra Mauro, in his map of the world, represents the Withered Tree in the middle of Central Asia. It has been surmised that this Withered Tree is no other than that alluded to by the Prophet Ezekiel (xvii., 24): “And all the trees of the field shall know that I the Lord have brought down the high tree, have exalted the low tree, have dried up the green tree.” [Illustration: Arbor Secco, or The Withered Tree. From _Maundevile’s Travels_.] Sulpicius Severus relates that an abbot, in order to test the patience of a novice, planted in the ground a branch of Styrax that he chanced to have in his hand, and commanded the Novice to water it every day with water to be obtained from the Nile, which was two miles from the monastery. For two years the novice obeyed his superior’s injunction faithfully, going every day to the banks of the river, and carrying back on his shoulder a supply of Nile water wherewith to water the apparently lifeless branch. At length, however, his steadfastness was rewarded, for in the third year the branch miraculously shot out very fine leaves, and afterwards produced flowers. The historian adds that he saw in the monastery some slips of the same tree, which they took delight to cultivate as a memento of what the Almighty had been pleased to do to reward the obedience of his servant. Another miraculous tree is alluded to in Fleetwood’s ‘Curiosities,’ where, on the authority of Philostratus, the author describes a certain talking Elm of Ethiopia, which, during a discussion held under its branches between Apollonius and Thespesio, chief of the Gymnosophists, reverently “bowed itself down and saluted Apollonius, giving him the title of Wise, with a distinct but weak and shrill voice, like a woman.”