PLATANUS 203 



times been raised from seed at Kew, and the young plants grow freely enough 

 for a time, but owing to injury by spring frost and the attacks of parasitic 

 fungi they rarely get beyond 6 ft. in height. In my experience at Kew only 

 one plant ever reached the height of 12 ft. Our winter frosts will not harm 

 it. The winter cold of Massachusetts is greater than we ever experience, but 

 I remember seeing, near Lancaster in that State, a tree with a trunk 20 ft. in 

 girth. In habit and in its tall trunk it resembles P. acerifolia. 



P. ORIENTALIS, Linnczus. ORIENTAL PLANE. 



A deciduous tree of the largest size, in this country occasionally 80 to 100 

 ft. high, and 14 to 20 ft. in girth of trunk ; in open situations it usually 

 branches a few feet from the ground into several large spreading limbs ; 

 young shoots at first covered with pale brown hair tufts, becoming smooth 

 later. Leaves palmate, 6 to 10 ins. wide, somewhat less in length, with five 

 large lobes, and usually a smaller one on each side at the base ; the lobes, 

 which are half to two-thirds the depth of the blade, and lance-shaped, have 

 each one to three large teeth or minor lobes at the sides. When they first 

 unfold, the leaves are covered with a thick whitish brown felt composed of 

 stellate hairs which later falls away, leaving the leaf smooth except near the 

 veins beneath, and glossy above ; stalk \\ to 3 ins. long. Fruit-balls two to 

 six on each stalk, I in. wide, bristly. 



Native of S.E. Europe and Asia Minor ; cultivated in England in the 

 middle of the sixteenth century. The true Oriental plane is comparatively 

 rare in gardens, having been ousted by the more rapidly growing " London " 

 plane, which is not so picturesque nor so pleasing as an isolated lawn tree. 

 It is easily distinguished from acerifolia by its shorter, more rugged trunk, 

 and its deeper, often doubly lobed leaves. Few trees are longer-lived than 

 this. On the banks of the Bosporus, there is a group of trees under which the 

 knights of Godfrey de Bouillon on their way to the crusades, are said to have 

 sheltered in 1069. Under a tree still living on the island of Cos in the 

 ^Egean Sea its trunk 18 yards in circumference tradition says that 

 Hippocrates sat more than 400 years B.C. There is no direct evidence to 

 support these stories, but they point to the perhaps unequalled longevity of 

 the plane among European trees. In his account of fine British specimens 

 Mr Elwes gives first place to one in the Palace Gardens at Ely, planted by 

 Bishop Gunning between 1674 and 1684. It is over 100 ft. high, and more 

 than 20 ft. in girth. A fine specimen at Kew, near the sundial, and on the 

 site of the famous seventeenth-century gardens of Sir Henry Capel of Kew 

 House, has a trunk 15 ft. in girth. 



P. RACEMOSA, NuttalL 



A tree 40 to 100 ft. high in California, with a trunk 2 to 6 ft. in diameter ; 

 young shoots clothed with a thick wool which falls away during the summer. 

 Leaves usually five- sometimes three-lobed ; the lobes reaching half-way or 

 more than half-way to the midrib, pointed and shallowly, often distantly, 

 toothed, slightly heart-shaped at the base ; thickly clothed below with pale, 

 persistent down, especially along the midrib and veins ; 6 to 12 ins. wide, 

 rather more in length ; stalks stout, downy, I to 3 ins. long. Flowers in ball- 

 like clusters, two to seven of which occur on the pendulous stalk ; by the time 

 the fruits have developed the balls are f in. across. 



Native of California ; introduced by Mr F. R. S. Balfour in 1910. Healthy 

 trees raised from his seed are now 9 ft. or more high ; the hardiness of this 

 plane has yet to be proved but does not seem doubtful. 



