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. 



