1886.] THE ORIENTAL PLANE TREE. 569 



THE ORIENTAL PLANE TREE. 



" pLATANUS orkntalis [and its varieties], that ornamental in- 

 troduction of 300 years ago, native to the Levant, Asia 

 Minor, and I'ersia — not the American or Western plane tree, P. 

 occidentalis — has been largely planted in recent years in situations 

 where, as on the Thames Embankment, the million can admire it, 

 and where, as time passes, our planes, like our oaks, will inspire 

 veneration, and elevate the thoughts. 



" Eeferring briefly to the planes of history, among the many 

 famous trees growing on the shores of the Mediterranean, one of 

 the greatest antiquity, most justly venerated, grows in the pass 

 of Thermopylae. None of the planes of our own country have yet 

 lived long enough to have attained old age, according to the period 

 of their existence in the East. There are, for example, the so-called 

 ' Seven Sisters ' growing on the shores of the Bosphorus, whose age 

 has never been discovered, and no remaining record is likely now to 

 reveal it ; but they are known as a matter of undoubted history 

 to have sheltered a party of English Crusaders in the eleventh 

 century. They are believed to be the oldest planes in the world. 



" Such was the beauty of a large plane tree standing in its prime 

 on the soil of Greece, on land which was no doubt sheltered, watered, 

 drained, and fertile, that Xerxes, on his invasion of that heroic 

 little country, was fascinated by it, and remained chained to the 

 spot for a wliole day. A Napoleon or a Gladstone would have cut 

 it down and marclied on, but Xerxes remained quite entranced 

 gazing upon the tree and sitting down beneath it. In war and 

 gardening delay of this kind is fatal, and so it proved to the 

 luxurious monarch, who passed on at last and was completely 

 beaten by the Greeks. Among other famous and historic planes, 

 Pliny mentions an aged tree which he himself had seen in Phrygia, 

 and among whose boughs the vain musician Marsyas, as the story 

 ran, had been suspended by Apollo when he flayed him alive after 

 his defeat, the unhappy mortal having challenged Apollo to a trial 

 of skill. Another plane of romantic interest was that which Helen 

 of Troy planted in Arcadia, and which Pausanias described as a tree 

 of great beauty, as well as size, at the age of 1300 years. 



" Interesting notices of another tree were successively published 

 by the three travellers, Hobhouse, Buckingham, and Chandler, who 

 each described a noble plane growing on the banks of the Selinus, 

 near Nostizza. To this tree has been assigned a diameter of 

 15 feet, a deceptive measurement, which must have included spurs 



