DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 
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size, common to both hemispheres, and greatly prized 
for the fine shade afforded by its spreading head, in 
the warmer parts of Europe and Asia. No tree was in 
greater esteem with the ancients for this purpose ; and 
we are told that the Academic groves, the neighborhood 
of the public schools, and all those favorite avenues where 
the Grecian philosophers were accustomed to resort, were 
planted with these trees ; and beneath their shade 
Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates, delivered the choicest 
wisdom and eloquence of those classic days. The 
Eastern plane ( Platanus orientalis ) was first brought 
to the Roman provinces from Persia, and so highly was 
it esteemed that according to Pliny, the Morini paid a 
tribute to Rome for the privilege of enjoying its shade. 
To that author we are also indebted for the history of the 
great plane tree that grew in the province of Lycia, 
which was of so huge a size, that the governor of the 
province, Licinius Mutianus, together with eighteen of 
his retinue, feasted in the hollow of its trunk. 
In the United States, the plane is not generally found 
growing in great quantities in any one place, but is more 
or less scattered over the whole country. In deep, moist, 
alluvial soils, it. attains a size scarcely, if at all, inferior to 
that of the huge trees of the eastern continent; forming 
at least, in the body of its trunk, a larger circumference 
than any other of our native trees. The younger 
Michaux ( Sylva , 1 , 325 ) measured a tree near Marietta, 
Ohio, which at four feet from the ground was found to be 
forty-seven feet in circumference ; and a specimen has 
lately been cut on the banks of the Genesee river, of such 
enormous size, that a section of the trunk was hollowed 
out and furnished as a small room, capable of containing 
