282 



THE OEIENTAL PLANE. 



PLATANUS OBIENTALIS. 



Natural Order PLATANACE.E. 



Class MoN(ECiA. Order POLYANDRIA. 



" TREES," says the Eoman naturalist, Pliny, " afforded the 

 first inducement to the barbarous tribes of Gaul to cross 

 the Alps, and spread themselves over Italy. A certain 

 Swiss once came to Eome to learn the art of a smith, and 

 on his return took with him raisins, dried figs, oil, and 

 wine j the taste of which incited his countrymen to invade 

 Italy with a hostile army. But who would have thought 

 it possible that a tree should have been brought from a 

 remote region of the world for the sake of its shade only 1 

 Yet such was the case : the Plane was first carried across 

 the Ionian Sea to shade the tomb of Diomede, who was 

 buried in one of the small islands off the coast of Apulia ; 

 thence it was introduced into Sicily; from Sicily it was 

 brought to Ehegium in Italy by the tyrant Dionysius ; and 

 has now extended so far, that the Morini (people of Calais) 

 are taxed for its shade. Dionysius held it in high honour, 

 and since his time it has so much increased in estimation 

 that its roots are nourished with wine instead of water/' 



Diomede was a Grecian hero, and to honour his tomb 

 the tree was planted which had of old been venerated in 

 Greece, and even in Asia. Herodotus informs us, that 

 when Xerxes was about to invade Europe with his 

 mighty army, and had arrived at Lydia, in Asia Minor, he 

 fell in with a Plane-tree, which, on account of its exces- 

 sive beauty, he decorated with golden ornaments, and left 

 behind him a warrior selected from the Immortal Band to 

 take care of it. "^Elian, and other authors 'tell us," says 

 Evelyn, " he made halt, and stopped his prodigious army 

 of 170,000 soldiers, which even covered the sea, exhausted 



