2040 ARBORETUM AND FRUTJCETUM. PART III. 



latter is said to have been introduced by Tradescant. The introduction of 

 the Eastern plane was, in Miller's time, generally attributed to Lord Bacon, 

 who, however, was not born till 1561, about 20 years after the first mention of 

 the tree by Turner. The origin of this supposition is probably the statement, 

 by Evelyn, that Lord Bacon " planted a noble parcel of them at Verulam, 

 which were very flourishing," and which, as Martyn remarks, might have been 

 the first of any note planted in England. Evelyn says " that he owed a 

 hopeful plant," then growing at his own villa, " to the late Sir George Crook 

 of Oxfordshire ;" and he speaks of the true, or Oriental, plane" as being more 

 common in England, in his time, than the American plane ; the reverse of 

 which, it may be observed, is now the case ; the Occidental plane being easily 

 propagated by cuttings, and growing much more rapidly than the Oriental 

 plane. In France, the Oriental plane was introduced from England, in the 

 reign of Louis XV., about 1754; and it is valued there, as in England, only 

 as an ornamental tree. 



Poetical Allusions. Homer frequently mentions "the shady plane;" Theo- 

 critus tells us that the virgins of Sparta used to assemble round a plane tree, 

 singing, " Reverence me, for I am the tree of Helen ! " and Moschus says, 



" I love to sleep beneath a leafy plane." 



Among the Latins, Virgil calls it the sterile, and the aerial plane, in allusion 

 to its not bearing eatable fruit, and to its height ; and Horace invites Hir- 

 pinus to drink Falernian wine under its shade. Ovid, also, calls it " the genial 

 plane." Among the oldest English poets we find no allusion to this tree; 

 but Browne mentions 



" The heavy-headed plane tree, by whose shade 

 The grape grows thickest, men are fresher made." 



Among the modern British poets, Southey says, 



" And broad-leaved plane trees in long colonnades 



O'erarch'd delightful walks, 



Where round their trunks the thousand-tendril'd vine 

 Wound up, and hung the boughs with greener wreaths, 

 And clusters not their own/' Thalaba. 



Moore, in the Veiled Prophet of Khorassan, calls it the chinar tree : 



" While some, for war's more terrible attacks, 

 Wield the huge mace and pond'rous battle-axe ; 

 And, as they wave aloft in Morning's beam 

 The milk-white plumage of their helms, they seem 

 Like a chinar tree grove when Winter throws 

 O'er all its tufted heads his feathering snows." 



And again, in Paradise and the Peri : 



" Though sunny the lake of cool Cashmere, 

 With its plane tree isle reflected there." 



Properties and Uses. The Oriental plane, in a wild state, as far as we know, 

 supports few or no insects ; and still fewer lichens or fungi live on its bark, 

 because that is continually scaling off. Very little use is made of the wood 

 in the west of Europe ; but in the Levant, and in Asia, it is said to be used 

 in carpentry, joinery, and cabinet-making; and, according to Riccioli, who 

 wrote in 1651, it was then employed in ship-building by the Turks. It is said 

 to make beautiful furniture, on account of the smoothness of its grain, and 

 its susceptibility of taking a high polish. Olivier says that its wood is not in- 

 ferior for cabinet-work to any wood of Europe ; and that the Persians employ 

 no other for their furniture, their doors, and their windows. (Trav., i. p. 76.) 

 The Greeks of Mount Athos, according to Belon, formed boats out of the 

 trunks of large trees of this species, similar to those which are used in modern 

 times on the Somme and on the Seine, in France. Sometimes, also, boats 

 were made of two trunks hollowed out, and joined together so as to fit, and 

 be water-tight. The wood of the Oriental plane, according to the experiments 

 of M. Hassenfratz, weighs, when dry, 49 Ib. 3 oz. per cubic foot : it is of a 

 yellowish white till the tree attains considerable age ; after which it becomes 

 brown, mixed with jasper-like veins ; and wood of this kind, being rubbed with 



