218 
“No. 475. Platanus orientalis, pilulis amplioribus. 
“No. 476. P. inter orientalem et occidentalem media. 
“No. 477. P. occidentalis aut virginiensis. 
“Corresponding to the diagnosis, No. 476, of the London 
Plane, as intermediate between the Oriental and the Occidental 
species, there is a dried specimen, undoubtedly P. acertfolia, in 
the Sherard Herbarium at Oxford, labelled ‘ Platanus media.’ 
“The first published description of the London Plane was by 
Plukenet in 1700, in his ‘Mantissa,’ p. 153, which reads as fol- 
lows: ‘Platanus orientalis et occidentalis mediam faciem obtinens, 
Americanus, globulis grandioribus, foliis splendentibus attris.’ 
The type specimen of this description is in the British Museum, 
Herb. Sloane, No. 101, folio 112. In addition there are two 
sheets of speciemens, collected by Petiver about the same period, 
one of which, Herb. Sloane, No. 149, folio 237—two fine leaves 
of Platanus acerifolia—is labelled ‘Platanus media, n. d. Bobart, 
Ox.’ 
“It is possible that the original tree, from which this specimen 
was taken by Bobart, was then living in the Oxford Botanic 
Garden. As Plukenet describes this plane as bearing large 
fruit-balls in 1700, it may have been then thirty years old, which 
would give the date or origin of Platanus acerifolia as 1670. 
“This history synchronizes well with the date of the mag- 
nificent London Plane,* probably the oldest in Europe, which is 
living in the Palace Garden at Ely and now measures 110 feet 
high, the trunk being 23 feet in girth at 5 feet above the ground. 
It was planted by Gunning, when he was bishop there between 
1674 and 1684, Bishop Gunning spent some time at Oxford 
before his appointment to the Ely diocese. 
“The splendid London Plane at the Ranelagh Club, Barnes, 
is precisely of the same size as the Ely tree, and is probably of 
the same age, both these trees being apparently cuttings of the 
original tree, which is postulated in this account to have been in 
the Oxford Botanic Garden. ‘There is no record of the age of 
the Ranelagh Club tree. There are two other immense London 
* Owing to an unfortunate mistake, the Ely tree is erroneously identified with 
P. orientalis in Elwes and Henry, ‘ Trees of Great Britain,’ iii, 621, plate 174 (1908).”” 
