58 



A DISCOURSE 



CHAP. III. 



The PL AT ANUS, LOTUS, and ACACIA. 



Plat ANUS This beautiful and precious tree, anciently sacred to 

 Helena, (and with which she crowned the Lar and Genius of the place,) 

 was so doated on by Xerxes, that ^lian and other authors tell us he 

 made halt, and stopped his prodigious army of seventeen hundred 



" Of this TREE there are only two species : 



1. PLATANUS ( oRiENTALisJ fohis palmatis. Lin. Sp. PI. 1417. Plane-iree with hand- 

 shaped leaves. Platanus Orientalis verus. Park. Theat. 1427' TiIe true eastern plane- 

 tree. 



This kind grows naturally in Asia, where it becomes a very large shady tree; the stem 

 is tall, erect,, and covered with a smooth bark ; it sends out many side-branches, which 

 are generally a little crooked at their joints; the bark of the young branches is of a 

 dark brown, inclining to a purple colour ; they are garnished with leaves, placed alternate ; 

 their foot-stalks are an inch and a half long ; the leaves are seven inches long, and eight 

 broad, deeply cut into five segments, and the two outer are slightly cut again into two more ; 

 these segments have many acute indentures on their borders, and have each a strong mid- 

 rib, with many lateral veins running to the sides ; the upper side of the leaves is of a deep 



green, and the under side pale. Dionysius, the geographer, compares the form of the 



Morea, or ancient Peloponnesus, to the leaves of this tree, making the foot-stalks the isthmus 

 by which it is joined to Greece. The flowers come out upon long foot-stalks, hanging 

 downward, each sustaining five or six round balls of flowers; the upper, which are the 

 largest, are more than four inches in qjrcumference ; these sit very close td the foot-stalks. 

 The flowers are so small as scarcely to be distinguished without glasses ; they come out a little 

 before the leaves, which is in the beginning of June ; in warm summers the seeds ripen late in 

 autumn, and, if left upon the trees, will remain till spring, when the balls fall to pieces ; the 

 bristly down which siirrounds the seeds, helps to transport them to a gr'eat distance. 



2. PLATANUS ('OCCIDENTS LIS J foliis lobatis. Lin. Sp. PI. 1418. Plane-iree with lobaled 

 leaves. Platanus Occidentalis s. Virginiensis. Pai-k. Theat. 1427- Occidental orriRoiNi a 



,PLANE-TSEE. 



This sort is naturally produced in most parts of North- America ; it grows to a considerable 

 size, with a straight stem of equal girt most part of the length : the bark is smooth, 

 like that of the other ; the branches extend wide on every side ; the young ones have a 

 brownish bark, but on the old ones it is gray ; the foot-stalks of the leaves are three inches 

 long ; the leaves are seven inches long, and ten broad ; they are cut into three lobes or 

 angles, and have several acute indentures on their borders, with three longitudinal midribs, 

 and many strong lateral veins. The leaves are of a light green on their upper side, and paler 

 on their under. The flowers grow in round balls like the former, but are smaller. The 



