PLANE TREE. 331 



number of Planes had been increased about Ispahan, in 

 Persia, the plague had not come near the place. 



" In the school of Plato, 11 says Dr. Hunter, " the phi- 

 losophers used to walk and converse together under the 

 shade of these delightful trees. 11 



" And broad-leaved plane trees in long colonnades 



O'erarched delightful walks, 



Where round their trunks the thousand-tendrill'd vine 

 Wound up, and hung the boughs with greener wreaths, 

 And clusters not their own." 



SOUTHEY'S Thalaba. 



Ovid calls it the genial Plane, " platanus gcniaUs.' n 

 Sannazaro uses a similar epithet : " amcnissimo piatano."" 



The Greeks seem to have liked it as well as the Ro- 

 mans. Moschus says 



" I love a sleep under a leafy plane*." 



One of our English poets gives good reason for such a 

 taste: 



" The heavy-headed plane tree, by whose shade 

 The grape grows thickest, men are fresher made." 



W. BROWNE. 



Moore speaks of it by its Persian name of Chenar 

 tree: 



" While some, for war's more terrible attacks, 

 Wield the huge mace and ponderous battle-axe ; 

 And as they wave aloft in morning's beam 

 The milk-white plumage of their helms, they seem 



* Hunt's Foliage, Evergreens, p. 78. 



