2040

ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM.

PART III.

latter is said to have been introduced by Tradescant . The introduction ofthe Eastern plane was, in Miller’s time, generally attributed to Lord Bacon,who, however, was not born till 1561, about 20 years after the first mention ofthe tree by Turner. The origin of this supposition is probably the statement,by Evelyn, that Lord Bacon “ planted a noble parcel of them at Verulam,which were very flourishing,” and which, as Martyn remarks, might have beenthe first of any note planted in England. Evelyn says “ that he owed ahopeful plant,” then growing at his own villa, “ to the late Sir George Crook of Oxfordshire ; ” and he speaks of the true, or Oriental, plane ” as being morecommon in England, in his time, than the American plane; the reverse ofwhich, it may be observed, is now the case; the Occidental plane being easilypropagated by cuttings, and growing much more rapidly than the Orientalplane. In France , the Oriental plane was introduced from England, in thereign of Louis XV. , about 1754; and it is valued there, as in England, onlyas an ornamental tree.

Poetical Allusions. Homer frequently mentions “ the shady plane;” Theo­ critus tells us that the virgins of Sparta used to assemble round a plane tree,singing, “ Reverence me, for I am the tree of Helen! ” and Moschus says,—

“ I love to sleep beneath a leafy plane.”

Among the Latins, Virgil calls it the sterile, and the aerial plane, in allusionto its not bearing eatable fruit, and to its height; and Horace invites Hir-pinus to drink Falernian wine under its shade. Ovid , also, calls it “ the genialplane.” Among the oldest English poets we find no allusion to this tree;but Browne mentions

** The heavy-headed plane tree, by whose shadeThe grape grows thickest, men are fresher made.”

Among the modern British poets, Southey says, —

** And broad-leaved plane trees in long colonnadesO’erarch’d delightful walks,

Where round their trunks the thousand-tendril'd vineWound up, and hung the boughs with greener wreaths,

And clusters not their own.” Thalaba.

Moore, in the Veiled Prophet of Khorassan , calls it the chinar tree : —

“ While some, for war’s more terrible attacks,

Wield the huge mace and pond’rous battle-axe jAnd, as they wave aloft in Morning’s beamThe milk-white plumage of their helms, they seemLike a chinar tree grove when Winter throwsO’er all its tufted heads his feathering snows.”

And again, in Paradise and the Peri: —

** Though sunny the lake of cool Cashmere ,

With its plane tree isle reflected there.”

Properties and Uses. The Oriental plane, in a wild state, as far as we know,supports few or no insects; and still fewer lichens or fungi live on its bark,because that is continually scaling off. Very little use is made of the woodin the west of Europe ; but in the Levant , and in Asia , it is said to be usedin carpentry, joinery, and cabinet-making; and, according to Riccioli, whowrote in 1651, it was then employed in ship-building by the Turks. It is saidto make beautiful furniture, on account of the smoothness of its grain, andits susceptibility of taking a high polish. Olivier says that its wood is not in-ferior for cabinet-work to any wood of Europe ; and that the Persians employno other for their furniture, their doors, and their windows. ( Trav ., i. p. 76.)The Greeks of Mount Athos , according to Belon, formed boats out of thetrunks of large trees of this species, similar to those which are used in moderntimes on the Somme and on the Seine , in France . Sometimes, also, boatswere made of two trunks hollowed out, and joined together so as to fit, andbe water-tight. The wood of the Oriental plane, according to the experimentsof M. Hassenfratz, weighs, when dry, 49 lb. 3 oz. per cubic foot: it is of ayellowish white till the tree attains considerable age; after which it becomesbrown, mixed with jasper-like veins ; and wood of this kind, being rubbed with