230 PLANE-TREE. CABBAGE-TREE, 
fortification. These hedges, being annually and care- 
fully pruned, will, in a few years, become impene- 
trable in every part. It is not uncommon in. Germany, 
to see the high roads thus guarded for many miles 
together ; and great advantage might be derived from 
adopting the same plan in many parts of our own 
kingdom. 
243. The PLANE-TREE (Platanus orientalis, Fig. 71) is 
distinguished by having broad leaves, each with about five prin- 
cipal divisions, and these subdivided into smaller ones. 
By the ancient Greeks and Romans the plane-tree 
was highly valued, on account of its grateful shade ; 
and the latter were much delighted by training it in 
such manner as to admit of their sitting beneath its 
branches. Wherever they built their magnificent col- 
leges for the exercise of youth, in the gymnastic art's, 
as riding, wrestling, running, leaping, throwing the 
discus, &c. and where also the gravest philosophers 
met to converse together and improve their studies, 
they planted avenues and walks of plane trees for re- 
freshment and shade. 
Though now frequently planted in parks and pleasure 
troundsj the sycamore (122) is, in many instances, pre- 
?rred to it. The plane, though a native of Asia and 
the southern parts of Europe, is very hardy, grows 
rapidly, and will flourish in any common soil, and in 
any aspect. 
Its wood, at a certain age, becomes much veined ; 
and, consequently, is valuable for many kinds of do- 
mestic furniture, but particularly for tables. 
244. The CABBAGE-TREE (Areca oleracea) is an Ame- 
rican species of palm, which grows to the height of a hundred 
feet and upwards, and is destitute of leaves until zoithin a few 
feet of the summit. The leaves, sometimes near twenty feet long, 
are zvinged, and the leajiets are entire. 
Such is the general elegance of this tree that it is 
frequently denominated the queen of woods. \t& fruit 9 
which grows in bunches from the top, is an oblong and 
