THE ORIENTAL PLANE. 



285 



afternoon coffee and pipe of tobacco." Dr. Clarke saw the 

 same tree many years after : one enormous branch had then 

 given way, notwithstanding its being supported by pillars 

 of granite; and this loss considerably diminished its bulk. 

 " Some notion," he says, " may be formed of the time those 

 props have been so employed by the appearance of the 

 bark : this has encased the extremities of the columns so 

 completely that the branches and the pillars mutually 

 support each other ; and it is probable, if those branches 

 were raised, some of them would lift the pillars from the 

 earth." A specimen of this tree was given by Hasselquist 

 to Linnaeus, and it is now in the Linnaean Herbarium. 



The Plane is a majestic tree, with a massive smooth 

 trunk. The bark is of an ash-gray, and is remarkable for 

 peeling off in large thin flakes; so that the trunk does 

 not borrow anything in size, like most other trees, from 

 numerous deposits of bark. The leaves are large, and 

 present a wide, flat surface, from which circumstance the 

 tree derives both its Greek and English names. The 

 Oriental Plane is distinguished from the Occidental by 

 having its leaves cut into five deep lobes, with numerous 

 secondary notches, bearing a not altogether fanciful re- 

 semblance, pointed out by the ancient geographers, to the 

 outline of the Morea, with its numerous bays and pro- 

 montories. The flowers, which are produced in globular 



