oriental planes in a grass field near the farm, where an old manor-house formerly stood, and these, according to the Rev. L. Mercer, vicar of Hawsted, are said to have existed in Queen Elizabeth’s time, and to be the oldest in England.’ They are difficult to measure accurately on account of their broad round tops and the trunks being covered with shoots, but the two largest are 75 to 80 feet high and 17 to 18 feet in girth, and the third is not much smaller. When I saw them on 24th June 1905, they were still covered with last year’s fruit, three to five on a peduncle, and new half-grown fruit was also growing on them. Their branches spread over a very wide area.
At Corsham Court, Wilts, the seat of General Lord Methuen, there is an oriental plane with very deeply-cut leaves whose branches spread over a larger area than those of any tree I have seen in England (Plate 175). It is 75 to 80 feet high and 184 feet in girth. One of the branches, which is self-layered in several places, extends no less than 27 paces from the main bole, and the total circumference of the branches is 140 paces. Three of the principal stems grown from the layered branches are 6 feet 3 inches, 4 feet 10 inches, and 4 feet respectively in girth. Lord Methuen believes that this tree was planted soon after his ancestor built the house in 1757, and a cedar recently cut down, probably of the same age, showed about 133 rings and thus tends to confirm his opinion.
Another very large tree of great age is growing close to the banks of the Test, at Mottisfont Abbey, Hants, which has layered its branches in the damp alluvial soil. When I saw it some years ago it was in good health, and in 1898 measured 29 feet 8 inches at 4½ feet where it forks, the branches having a diameter of 129 feet.2 At Bisterne Park near Ringwood, in the same county, there is a very fine old tree measuring, in 1906, 100 feet by 18 feet.
At Weston Hall, Staffordshire, the seat of the Earl of Bradford, there is a very fine plane which I have not seen myself, but which was measured? in 1875 as 80 feet by 184 feet with a bole 11 feet high, and twelve large limbs from 4 to 7 feet in girth.
At Blickling Hall, Norfolk, there are two very old trees growing close together, the largest of which was, in 1907, 11 feet in girth and almost 60 feet high, with remarkably spreading branches, covering a space of 140 feet in the largest diameter, and 127 paces in circumference. The lowermost branches lying upon the ground had taken root, and growing erect for a time had again bent down and taken root a second time..
At Chiswjck House, London, there is another example of a large oriental plane with very spreading pendulous branches, many of which are lying upon the ground and one has taken root. This tree was, in 1903, 13½ feet in girth, 74 feet in height, and the diameter of the spread was 100 feet.
At Greycourt, Ham, in Surrey, the residence of Colonel Biddulph, there is a tree which measured, in 1906, 16 feet 11 inches in girth and 72 feet in height, and had a short bole of 7 feet dividing into three great limbs, the diameter of the spread of branches being 94 feet.
1 Cf. Woods and Forests, 1884, p. 153.
2 Cf. Gard. Chron. xxiii. 24, figs. 9, 10 (1898).
3 Geo, Berry, in Garden, xx. 370 (1881).
