DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 159 



size, common to both hemispheres, and greatly prized 

 for the fine shade afforded by its spreading head, in 

 the warmer parts of Europe and Asia. No tree was in 

 greater esteem with the ancients for this purpose ; and 

 we are told that the Academic groves, the neighborhood 

 of the public schools, and all those favorite avenues where 

 the Grecian philosophers were accustomed to resort, were 

 planted with these trees ; and beneath their shade 

 Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates, delivered the choicest 

 wisdom and eloquence of those classic days. The 

 Eastern plane {Platanus orientalis) was first brought 

 to the Roman provinces from Persia, and so highly was 

 it esteemed that according to Pliny, the Morini paid a 

 tribute to Rome for the privilege of enjoying its shade. 

 To that author we are also indebted for the history of the 

 great plane tree that grew in the province of Lycia, 

 which was of so huge a size, that the governor of the 

 province, Licinius Mutianus, together with eighteen of 

 his retinue, feasted in the hollow of its trunk. 



In the United States, the plane is not generally found 

 growing in great quantities in any one place, but is more 

 or less scattered over the whole country. In deep, moist, 

 alluvial soils, it attains a size scarcely, if at all, inferior to 

 that of the huge trees of the eastern continent ; forming 

 at least, in the body of its trunk, a larger circumference 

 than any other of our native trees. The younger 

 Michaux {Sylva, 1, 325) measured a tree near Marietta, 

 Ohio, which at four feet from the ground was found to be 

 forty-seven feet in circumference ; and a specimen has 

 lately been cut on the banks of the Genesee river, of such 

 enormous size, that a section of the trunk was hollowed 

 out and furnished as a small room, capable of containing 



