252 



THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



the thoroughfare was planted first, the 

 other shortly after, but neither of them 

 were planted in commemoration of any 

 particular event, as they ought to have 

 been, to give them a historical place in the 

 topography of the City. Where they now 

 stand, the ground was occupied with 

 poplars, which had succumbed to the in- 

 fluences of City smoke, and become bare 

 poles. Before the poplars, the plot in Sta- 

 tioners'Hall Court was occupied with build- 

 ings, and through the whole history of 

 the departed poplars andthepresent plane- 

 trees not a single spoonful of fresh soil 

 has been brought to the place; so the 

 plane-trees have attained their present 

 magnitude and beauty under a combina- 

 tion of the most untoward circumstances. 

 Mr. Greenliill is unable to inform me 

 whence these plane-trees came, but he 

 thinks they were bought at Covent Car- 

 den by the gardener at the Temple. To 

 trace them to their source would be in- 

 teresting, not only for the sake of getting 

 their history completed, but as a help to- 

 wards solving the botanical epiestions that 

 hang about all the plane-trees of the City 

 and the parks. The trees differ; that in 

 the garden behind the Hall was clean 

 stripped of its leaves on the 11th of this 

 present October, that in the court had not 

 then shed a leaf or changed its colour. 

 That in the garden has small, entire lobed 

 leaves of irregular outline, one lobe pro- 

 jecting so as to give the leaf a decidedly 

 auricled character. The leaves of the 

 other are large, deeply toothed, and the 

 lobes quite symmetrical, the foot-stalk 

 twice the length of the other ; the larger 

 leaf is distinctly quinqangular, the smaller 

 is irregularly erose, with the auricled lobe 

 variously on the right or left hand of the 

 foot-stalk. The leaves of both these trees 

 differ from the tree at the corner of Wood 

 Street, and the peculiarity of this last is, 

 that in general habit it resembles the one 

 in the garden of Stationers' Hall, and was 

 bare of leaves on the 11th of October, and 

 its leaves are so various in outline, as to 

 represent all the several divisions of the 

 type to which it belongs. Of three leaves 

 now before me, one is of large size, bluntly 

 triangular, the sidelobes symmetrical, and 

 the margin crenute throughout ; another 

 is the exact counterpart of a large leaf of 

 Irish ivy, and another closely resembles 

 the auricled leaf of the tree in Stationers' 

 Hall garden. The foot-stalk is of medium 

 length, longer than the last-mentioned, 

 but shorter than the tree in Stationers' 

 Hall Court. It may be worth adding, that 

 when ihy Stationers' Hall trees were 



planted, the corners of the plots were 

 furnished with thorns which grew and 

 flowered well, until their quicker growing 

 neighbours choked them, and they had to 

 be removed. 



These three trees, and many others 

 that peep over the tops of City houses, 

 are of the kind known as the occidental 

 plane ; but there is no such thing as an 

 occidental plane to be found anywhere in 

 the City. The true occidental plane is so 

 tender in this climate that it has never yet 

 grown to the stature of a tree. Its habit 

 is to make vigorous shoots, bearing a 

 grand foliage of a character very distinct 

 from the London plane-trees. Instead of 

 being deeply palmated, as are the leaves of 

 one of these Stationers' Hall trees, the leave3 

 of Platanus occidentalis are very slightly 

 lobed, and almost circular, and there can 

 be no mistake as to its identity with those 

 who know the distinctions of the species 

 and varieties of platanus. But the vital 

 point for practical purposes is in the fact 

 that during winter the greater part of the 

 previous season's growth is killed back, and 

 to raise standard trees of it in this country 

 is a proved impossibility. Mr. Rivers, of 

 Sawbridgeworth, has observed the growth 

 of P. occidentalis during the past forty 

 years, and he says, " I l'emember endea- 

 vouring to form into standards the young 

 trees raised by layers from the stools, as 

 their foliage was so grand, but could never 

 succeed." Sir William Hooker has at- 

 tempted the same thing at Kew by raising 

 plants from American seed, " but the an- 

 nual shoots are killed clown every winter." 

 What, then, is the tree that does so much 

 to adorn our City gardens, and that gives 

 so distinct a character to the wood of our 

 parks ? Mr. Rivers has probably set the 

 matter at rest by describing it as Platanus 

 acerifolia — the maple-leaved plane ; but 

 its origin cannot be definitely stated, ex- 

 cept so far as this— that it is certainly 

 not American ; and, as remarked by Dr. 

 I Lindley, in the Gardeners' Chronicle of 

 January 21, 18G0, " that it is of Eastern 

 origin we can scarcely doubt." 



Granted, then, that we have no occi- 

 dental planes in the City, aud that those 

 bearing that name should be designated 

 maple-leaved planes (Platanus acerifolia), 

 we must fall back on Miller for the best 

 indications we can get of its original where- 

 abouts. Miller grew this maple-leaved 

 plane, aud believed it to be a seminal 

 variety of the Eastern plane, " for seeds 

 which scatteredfrom a large trecinChelsea 

 Gardens, have produced plants of that 

 sort several times." But Miller had also 



