624 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



The tree of the Janissaries, the ancient plane, which stands in the Court of the 

 Janissaries in the Old Seraglio at Constantinople, was 39 feet in girth at 3 feet from 

 the ground in 1890; but the trunk was hollow, the branches and foliage, however, 

 being sound and vigorous.' 



In the British Medical Journal oi 21st June 1902, there is an excellent account, 

 with illustrations, of a plane tree in the island of Cos, which from its appear- 

 ance must be one of the oldest trees in the Mediterranean, if not so old as its 

 somewhat mythical history alleges. Local tradition says that under this tree 

 Hippocrates, the celebrated Greek physician, taught the art of healing no less 

 than 2300 years ago. The tree grows near the landing-stage, between an ancient 

 castle and a mosque, close to a drinking-fountain. Mr. von Holbach, who measured 

 it, gives the girth of its hollow trunk as 1 8 metres ; but all the upper part has 

 decayed away, and the lower part of the tree now consists of immense branches which 

 are supported on antique marble columns, over the tops of which their great weight 

 has caused them to grow. Dr. Clapton, of 41 Eltham Road, Lee, procured a section 

 of one of the branches of this tree, and has presented a photograph of it to the 

 Hunterian Museum. 



Bonvalot,* on his way from Samarcand to Amu, states that he halted at Sarijui, 

 near the residence of the chief, under a plane tree, which was about 37 feet in 

 diameter at 6 feet above the ground. In his book, a picture of the tree is given, 

 and a great limb comes off low down, which evidently was included in the above 

 measurement. The tree appears to be about 50 feet in girth at the base below 

 where the limb comes off. Another enormous tree,* 49 feet in girth, stands in the 

 grounds of the mosque of Tajrish, a village in the Elburz Mountains, north of 

 Teheran, in Persia. 



Var. acerifolia. 



The variety acerifolia seems to have generally replaced the cut-leaved form at 

 some period above a hundred years ago, but we cannot find any certain evidence 

 of this, because it was generally confused with the western plane. 



All the planes that we have seen in the squares, parks, and gardens about 

 London of less age than about 100 years are acerifolia, and the finest specimen that 

 I know of is the one in the Ranelagh Gardens, which measured, in 1903, 105 feet 

 high, with a girth of 20 feet 4 inches. 



The planes in Berkeley Square are worth notice on account of their uniform 

 burry trunks swelling at the base. They all appear to have been propagated from 

 the same stool and to have retained this peculiarity throughout. They were planted 

 by Mr. Edward Bouverie in 1789 and are probably the oldest plane trees in London.* 

 According to Mr. R. Birkbeck the two largest, in 1906, girthed at 5 feet, 13 feet 10 

 inches and 13 feet 4 inches, and were about 85 feet high. Tradition says that this 

 'area was a burial-ground during the Plague of London in 1665. 



On the banks of the river Rother at Woolbeding Rectory, Sussex, in the garden 



' GardtH and Forest, iv. 85, fig. 19 (1891 ), where a fiill account and good picture of this remarkable tree are given. 

 ' TTtrough the Heart 0/ Asia, i. 207, fig. on p. 209. Sarijui is a village 96 miles S.S.E. of Samarcand. 

 '.Figured in Woods and Jorests, i. 375 (1884). Hare, IValks in London, ii. 74 (1894). 



