CHAP. cvii. PLATAN a'ce.1:. pla'tanus. 2039 



he had ever done in his most magnificent marble saloon." (P//n.,lib. xii. c. 1.) 

 " The emperor Caligula found, near Velitrae, an extraordinary plane tree. It 

 had some of its branches formed like a roof, and others as seats. In this 

 saloon the emperor gave a supper to fifteen persons, which he called the Feast 

 of the Nest, because it had been given in a tree ( Quam ccenam appelkivU Hie 

 nidum)." {Id.) Pliny also speaks of a tree in Arcadia, M-hich, he says, was 

 planted by Agamemnon ; and he states that canoes, and other vessels for the 

 sea, were foruied of the excavated trunks of the plane tree. Cicero mentions 

 the plane tree as well calculated to aflbrd a thick shade, by the extent of its 

 branches, and the thickness of its foliage. 



The chinar, or Oriental plane tree, has been cultivated in Persia from the 

 earliest period ; and Evelyn states that " a worthy knight, who staid at Ispahan 

 when that famous city was infected with a raging pestilence, told" him "that, 

 since they have planted a greater number of these noble trees about it, tTie 

 plague has not come nigh "their dwellings." {Hunt. Eve/., ii. p. 56.) In the 

 Didionnaire des Eaux et Forcts, the same observation is attributed to the 

 Chevalier Chardin, who was probably the " worthy knight" alluded to by Eve- 

 lyn. This gentleman, who was also called Sir John Chardin, and who published 

 a folio edition of his travels, written in French, in London, in 1686, observes of 

 the gardens of the Persians, that they are generally divided in the middle by an 

 avenue of chinar trees ; and that, as the Persians do not use their gardens for 

 walking in, but as a place for sitting in and breathing the fresh air, they generally 

 seat themselves under these trees. Sir Robert Ker Porter found the Persian 

 gardens intersected by avenues of plane trees in different directions ; and 

 Morier, Colonel Johnson, and Sir William Ousely, agree in attributing to 

 them this characteristic, and in describing the Persians as preferring the chinar 

 as a tree to worship under. Sir William Ousely mentions that on these trees 

 the devotees sacrifice their old clothes by hanging them to the branches ; 

 and that the trunks of favourite chinar trees are commonly found studded 

 with rusty nails and tatters ; the clothes sacrificed being left nailed to the 

 tree till tliey drop to pieces of themselves. 



In Eraser's Historical and Descriptive Account of Persia, published in 1834, 

 when speaking of the general effect of the scenery in Persia, the author says : 

 " No trees dadden the landscape, except the tall poplar, or the stately chinar 

 (Platanus onentalis), which rise above the hovels of the peasants; or the fruit 

 trees of their orchards ; or, perhaps, a few of other sorts which may have been 

 planted on the margin of a watercourse, to supply the little timber required : 

 and these, dotting the wide plain with their dark foliage, convey to the mind 

 a melancholy, rather than cheering, impression." (p. 28.) _ 



The Oriental plane tree appears to have been introduced into England about 

 the middle of the sixteenth centm-y; as^Turner says, in his Herhall (the first 

 part of which was published under the title of the Names of Herbes, as early 

 as ISil, though the entire work was not finished till 1568): " I have scene 

 two very yong trees in England, which were called there Playn trees; 

 whose leaves in all poyntes were lyke unto the leaves of the Italian Playn 

 tre. And it is doubtles that these two trees were either brought out of 

 Italy, or of som farr countre beyond Italy, whereunto the frieres, monks, 

 and chanons went a pilgrimage." Gerard does not mention having seen 

 the Oriental plane growing in England ; but he tells us that his " servant, 

 William Marshall, whom he sent into the Mediterranean Sea, as surgeon unto 

 the Hercules of London, found divers trees hereof growing in Lepanto, hard 

 by the sea side, at the entrance into the towne, a port of Morea, being part 

 of Greece; and from thence brought one of these rough buttons, bemg the 

 fruit thereof." (Herball, p. 1489.) "Jonson, in his edition of Gerard, adds to 

 this passage, that Mr. Tradescant had then (163.3) trees of this plane growing 

 in his garden ; but, according to Martyn's Miller, this is evidently a mistake, 

 the trees in Tradescant's garden being the Occidental plane, which was intro- 

 duced by him about this period. In Parkinson's Theatrum Botamcum, pub- 

 lished in 1640, both the Eastern and Western plane trees are figured ; and the 



