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Family Platanaceae
Platanus acerifolia
In spite of the fact that the Plane is an exotic
of comparatively recent introduction, it seems
in a fair way of being associated in the future
with London. It has taken with a great kindness
to London life, with all the drawbacks of smoke,
fog, flagstones, and asphalt. It leaves get thickly
coated with grime, which also turns its light-grey
bark to blackish; but as the upper surface of
the leaves is smooth and firm, a shower of rain
washes them clean, and the rigid outer layer of
bark is thrown off by the expansion of the softer
bark beneath. This is not thrown off all at once,
but in large and small flakes, which leave a smooth
yellow patch behind, temporarily free from contamination.
A large variety of trees has been tried from street-planting,
but none has stood the trying conditions of London
so well as the London Plane. (P. acerifolia),
and therefore, before many years, the capital
may well be the city of Planes.
The London Plane is believed to be of hybrid origin
and to have first appeared about 1670 at Oxford.
Some fine examples may be seen in London parks
and squares. It is not known anywhere in the wild
state.
The London Plane normally rises to a height of
something between seventy and ninety feet, and
the trunks attains a circumference of from nine
to twelve feet; but there is a record of a Plane
whose waist measured twenty-five feet! Many persons
imagine because the leaves of the Plane resemble
those of the Sycamore that the two are closely
related; but a comparison of the flowers and fruit
will show that this is not so. The catkins of
the Plane take the form of balls, in which male
or female flowers are pressed together; and the
fruits, instead of being winged samaras, are the
rough balls that so closely resemble an old-fashioned
form of button, and the tree is known in some
parts of the United States as the Button-wood.
The leaves are broad and five-lobed, and instead
of being attached to the stem in pairs, as in
the Sycamore, those of the Plane are alternate
on opposite sides of the shoot. In summer no buds
can be seen because they are enclosed in the swollen
bases of the leaf-stalks.
The outline of the tree is not as regular as in
most others, the leaves being gathered in heavy
masses, with broad spaces between, rather than
equally distributed over the head. This is due
to the freedom with which the crooked arms are
flung about.
The pale-brown wood is fine-grained, tough, and
hard, and is extensively used by coach-builders,
cabinet-makers, etc., but is not highly esteemed
for other purposes to which timber is put in this
country.
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