Genus PLANERA, Gmel. 
L_na : e - - - .TgnTTiia Monaecia ; or Tetr-Pent-andria Digynia. 
Synonymcs. 
Or Authors . 
Jikob Planer, professor of botany it Erftrrth. who pub 
Generic Character* Sexes polygamous, or each in a distinct flower: in each case upon the same plant. 
C i yx of female and bisexual flowers bell-shaped, distinct from the OTary. membranous, green, of one 
piece, but having 5 dilate lobes. Stamens, in the bisexual flower. 4 5, less developed than those in 
the male flower. On St grass - sess diverging, white, pimpled. Fruit 
roundish, gibbous, poimei toy, --celled, each cell containing 1-seed. Calyx ::" male flower as in the 
female and bisexual flowf r; Stamens 4 5. inserted near the centre of the bottom of the calyx, and 
:;.;. - " - Az:i?rs reaekmg i Bttk beyond the lobes :. the :i.yx . ': kbe mtwaidty :: the 
filamen: : - I : bes that seem as -. indS - -d lengthwise. In P. gmeiim 
ulrnifoha.) the fruits are in heads ; and in P. richardii. nearly sohtary. Leaves alternate, and more 
or less orate and toothed ; feather-veined and annual ; and the flowers, small, and not showy. P. rich- 
ardii has stipules, which are ..:. pointed, villous, and soon fall off. Adapted, frowi Turpi*, Mi- 
ckata, and London. 
,HE genus Planera embraces deciduous trees and shrubs, natives of 
western Asia, and of North America : quite hardy in Britain, and 
in the middle states of the American union, and are readily propa- 
gated by grafting on the elm. by layers, and cuttings of the roots. 
or from seeds, in any common soil. There are at least two spe- 
cies in this genus, the zelkoua-tree. (Planera richardii.) and 
Gmelin's planera (Planera ulrnifoha.) The former is a beautiful lofty tree. 
growing to a height of seventy or eighty feet, native of the country between the 
Black and Caspian Seas, particularly of Imiretta and Mingrelia : also of the north 
of Persia, and of Georgia. It is distinguished by its shining-green, broadly 
crenulated leaves. ::s smooth, greenish trunk, and somewhat resembles the 
beech, except that its branches are more numerous, and grow more erect. Both 
the sap-wood and the heart- wood of the zelkoua are employed as timber for the 
same purposes as the oak. The heart-wood, when cut obliquely, resernb.es that 
of the robinia. and like that wood, presents numerous interlacements of fibre. 
It is very heavy, and when dry. becomes so extremely hard, that it is difficult 
to penetrate it with nails. It has. also, the great advantage of never becoming 
worm-eaten, however old it may be. It is remarkably durable as posts, to stand 
either in water or in the earth- The largest recorded tree of this species, in Eu- 
rope, is on the estate of M. le Compte de Dijon, at Podenas. near Xerac. in 
France, in the department of the Lot et Garonne. It was planted in 17S9 : and 
on the 29th of January. 1831, it measured nearly eighty feet in height, with a 
trunk three feet in diameter, at a yard above the ground. The Planera richardii 
5 first introduced into Britain in about the year 176'J. and planted in the gar- 
dens ai >yon and at Kew. in which there are specimens exceeding fifty feet in 
height. The zelkoua or zelkona. was introduced into the United States in 1 7^4. 
by the late William Hamilton, at the Woodlands, near Philadelphia, where there 
are five beautiful fasti giate-gro wing trees, from forty-five to fifty or more feet in 
heisht. with trunks from eighteen inches to two feet in diameter. 
