History of the Cultivated Planes
The oriental plane was introduced into Italy from Greece about 390 b.c.; and Hehn’ gives a full account of the classical allusions to the tree.2 It came into England* some time before 1562. In Turner’s Herball, published in that year, a figure is given, and the author states: ‘I have sene the leves of that Platanus that groweth in Italy and two very yong trees in England which were called there Playn trees, whose leves in all poyntes were lyke unto the leves of the Italian Playn tree. And it is doubtles that these two trees were either brought out of Italy or of som farr countrie beyond Italy where unto the freres monkes and chanones went a pilgrimage.”
The American plane, P. occidentalis, was introduced into England by Tradescant,* in whose garden two small plants were growing in 1636, when Johnson published his edition of Gerard’s Herball. It was undoubtedly in cultivation in the eighteenth century, as a specimen from a tree cultivated at Kew in 1781 exists in the British Museum ; but another specimen from the Chelsea Physic Garden, dated 1789 and labelled P. occidentatis, is undoubtedly P. acerifolia. The figure given in Evelyn’s Sylva of P. occidentalis really represents P. acerifolia. Similarly Loudon’s description and figure of the American plane are inaccurate, and in part refer to P. acerifolia. The confusion between these two forms is thus shown to have begun early, and has lasted until quite recently; and it is probable that most of the references to the occidental plane in this country and on the continent of Europe refer to P. acerifolia.
Platanus acerifolia was first distinguished by Tournefort® in 1703. Miller,® in 1731, gives an account of three kinds of plane: P. orientalis vera, P. occidentalis, and P. aceris folio; but he was unaware of the real distinctions between the two latter, attributing to P. occidentalis the property of being easily propagated by cuttings, whereas it is P. acerifolia of which this is true. He asserts that his P. aceris folio is only a seminal variety of P. orientalis.
Bolle” states that Bourgeau found considerable forests of P. acerifolia in Lycia. This statement has not been confirmed, and there is no evidence of the occurrence anywhere of this form in the wild state. The difference between it and the wild form of P. orientalis (var. insularis) is mainly in habit, and taking into account the variability of the leaves on the wild tree, no two of which are alike in the specimens which I have examined, there is little doubt that P. acerifolia is a seedling variety of P. orientalis, which has been fixed in cultivation. Intermediate forms between it and the ordinary typical variety are not unusual. Bolle states that seedlings of acerifolia often exhibit the characters of typical orientalis. Further experiments on this point are desirable, as well as a thorough investigation of the range of variation
1 Kulturpflanzen, ed. 6, p. 283.
2 The Romans planted it in their gardens for shade ; Ovid calls it genialis, and Horace cœlebs because it did not support the vine.
3 It was probably introduced into France in Provence about the same time. Cf. Le Jardin, 1896, pp. 116, 162.
4 Cf. Parkinson, Theat. Bot. 1427 (1640).
5 Coroll. 41 (1703).
6 Gard. Dict. ed. 1 (1731).
7 Gard. Chron. i. 564 (1876).
