44 



An Account of Plants, §c. 



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 perpendicular ladders, 

 suspended from the lowest branches. I measured the trunk 

 of that from which the seeds I send were taken: the cir- 

 cumference was five feet; and the height, where the first 

 branches issued, forty feet ; from the summit of the highest 

 branch, was from ninety to one hundred feet ; and this im- 

 mense 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 process, 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 Constanti- 

 nople, to commemorate the birth of his son, Bajazet II., the 

 trunk of which is fifty feet in circumference. There is another 

 of more enormous size, at Buyukdere, on the Bosphorus; it 



