2i6 SYLVA BOOK ii 



ingly ; so as I am perswaded, that with very ordinary 

 industry, they might be propagated to the incredible 

 ornament of the walks and avenues to great-mens 

 houses. The introduction of this true plane among 

 us, is, perhaps due to the great Lord Chancellor 

 Bacon, who planted those (still flourishing ones) at 

 Verulam ; as to mine, to that honourable gentleman, 

 the late Sir George Crook of Oxfordshire, from whose 

 bounty I received an hopeful plant now growing in 

 my villa : Nor methinks should it be so great a rarity, 

 (if it be true) that being brought from Sicily, it was 

 planted as near us as the Morini. 



3. There was lately at Basil in Switzerland, an 

 ancient goodly Platanetum^ and now in France they 

 are come again in vogue : I know it was anciently 

 accounted oicapTroe ; but they may with us be rais'd of 

 their seeds with care, in a moist soil, as here I have 

 known them. But the reason of our little success, 

 is, that we very rarely have them sent us ripe ; which 

 should be gather'd late in Autumn, and brought us 

 from some more Levantine parts than Italy. They 

 come also of layers abundantly, affecting a fresh and 

 feeding ground ; for so they plant them about their 

 rivulets and fountains. The West-Indian plane is 

 not altogether so rare, but it rises to a goodly tree, 

 and bears a very ample and less jagged leaf : That 

 the Turks use their platanus for the building of ships, 

 I learn out of Ricciolus Hydrog. 1. 10. c. 37. and out 

 of Pliny, canoos and vessels for the sea have been 

 excavated out of their prodigious trunks. 



4. The same opinion have I of the noble lotus 

 arbor^ (another lover of the water) which in Italy 

 yields both an admirable shade, and timber immortal, 

 growing to a vast tree, where they come sponta- 



