Transactions of the Horticultural Society. 297 



Hedera chrysocai'pa. Dioscorides and Pliny. Rare, seeds 

 medicinal. 



Primus cerasus, two varieties. " The .first of these va- 

 rieties is a cherry of enormous size, which grows along the 

 northern coast of Asia Minor, from whence the original 

 cherry was brought to Europe. It is cultivated in gardens, 

 always as a standard, and by a graft. The gardens there 

 consist wholly of cherry-trees, and each garden occupies 

 several acres of ground. You are permitted to enter these, 

 and eat as much fruit as you please, without payment ; but, 

 if you wish to take any with you, you pay ten paras an oke, 

 about a half-penny per pound. The second variety is an 

 amber-coloured transparent cherry, of a delicious flavour. It 

 grows in the woods, in the interior of Asia Minor, particularly 

 on the banks of the Sakari, the ancient Sangarius. The 

 trees attain a gigantic size ; they are ascended by perpendi- 

 cular ladders, suspended from the lowest branches. I mea- 

 sured the trunk of one : the circumference was five feet ; and 

 the height, where the first branches issued, forty feet; 

 the summit of the highest branch was from 90 to 100 feet, 

 and this immense tree was loaded with fruit." 



Phoenix dactylifera. " A fruit-bearing branch of this tree 

 was sent to me from Damietta, in Egypt, as a kind which is 

 rare, and highly prized. The fruit was not ripe ; but I was 

 directed to cover the end of the branch with a piece of bladder, 

 and hang the branch against the wall : the fruit, by this pro- 

 cess, gradually ripened, of a large size and good flavour." 



Platanus orientalis. " The Turks on the birth of a son, 

 plant a platanus ; as they do a cypress on the death of one. 

 In the court of the seraglio is a venerable tree of this species, 

 which, tradition says, was planted by Mahomet II. after the 

 taking of Constantinople, to commemorate the birth of his 

 son, Bajazet II., the trunk of which is fifty feet in circum- 

 ference. There is another of more enormous size at Buyuk- 

 dere, on the Bosphorus ; it stands in a valley, and measures 

 forty-five yards in circumference ! It, in fact, now consists of 

 fourteen large trees, growing in a circle from the same root, 

 but separating at some distance from the ground. The Turks 

 sometimes encamp here; and the Ben Bashee pitches his 

 tents in the centre of this tree of trees. The immense size to 

 which the platanus attains has been the wonder of antiquity : 

 Pliny describes several, in one of which Lucinius Mucianus 

 gave a supper to a company of twenty-two friends." 



Ricinus Communis. Called Kroton, and Ricinus, from 

 the resemblance of the seeds to the tick insect, which fastens 

 on dogs' ears. Seeds taken as pills for a purgative ; abundant 



