228 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 
three feet and a half from the ground on the lower side. Four 
feet higher, it measured twenty-one feet four inches. At ten or 
twelve feet it divided into two trunks which rose, parallel, to 
the height of not less than one hundred feet. In some aspects, 
it looked at a distance like a tree with one undivided trunk; in 
others, like two trees. Many moderately large branches thrown 
out far from the ground, gave it a long, cylindrical head. The 
root covered the ground from four to eight feet on all sides of the 
trunk. In this horizontal pavement, some openings indicated 
decay, but in every other respect, the tree had the appearance 
of perfect vigor.* 
I fear that tree may not be now alive, as many of the 
finest plane trees have perished within a few years; if it is still 
standing. it is one of the most remarkable, for size and loftiness, 
in New England. Few trees are left of such gigantic dimen- 
sions as this. But still the plane is the largest, grandest, and 
loftiest deciduous tree in America. It has a magnificent colum- 
nar trunk. For a short distance from the ground it diminishes 
with a rapid, but regular curve, which gives it a base of vast 
stability ; thence with a scarcely perceptible taper, a shaft rises 
high in the air, bearing its light green top aloft, above the sum- 
mit of the other trees of the forest. The trunk presents a great 
variety of appearance. Rarely, it is seen with an ashen gray 
bark cracked and rough, like other trees. But the bark has very 
* This horizontal expansion at the base is common in the plane tree of Europe. 
Olivier, speaking of the great plane tree of Buyuk-déré, a valley on the Dardan- 
elles, six miles from the Black Sea, says—“ Seven or eight trees, of an enormous 
size, adhering at their base, rise circularly, and leave in the middle a considerable 
space. A great many Greeks and Armenians were seated on the turf, in the 
shade of these trees, smoking their pipes. Several Turks were in the enclosure 
of the plane tree, smoking their pipes and drinking coffee.” 
“The plane tree often presents at its base a considerable expansion of a diam- 
eter double or triple that of the trunk, and which may exceed thirty feet, as we 
have sometimes seen, so that it frequently happens when the tree dies of age, 
that it sends forth, all round the stump, shoots which form so many new trees; 
this, no doubt, is what has happened to the plane tree of Buyuk-déré. We re- 
marked, indeed, that the seven or eight trunks of which it is formed, appear to 
have a common origin, and that they are all connected by their base.””— Travels in 
the Ottomon Empire, Egypt, and Persia. By G. A. Olivier. London, 1801. Vol. 
I, pp. 114, 115. 
