stamens with red anthers are attached to the under-side of the cup.
The name of the genus Populus is the old Latin for Poplar and Aspen.
The Oriental Plane (Platanus orientalis).
One need not go far into the country in order to see the
Plane. Its virtue as a smoke-proof tree has now been well
tested by the governing authorities in large towns, and it is
freely planted in recreation grounds and by the sides of broad
thoroughfares. In London it must now be about the
commonest tree; and some of the specimens grown in the
west-end squares are very fine. Several of the London Planes
have become quite "lions," to be seen by all visitors who
"do" the Metropolis; such is the individual that overtops the
old-fashioned houses at the corner of Wood Street, Cheapside.
More celebrated, perhaps, is the Stationers' Hall Court tree,
which, though only about sixty-five years old, is so important
a feature of that corner of the City that, on the rumour that it
was to be cut down a few years since to allow of certain
improvements in the court, the denizens of Paternoster Row
and the precincts were up in arms, and evinced such indignation
that the building plans of the Stationers' Company were
modified, and the tree spared to delight the sparrows of the
vicinity, and to bring thoughts of the country into the hearts
of the publishing and bookselling fraternity who daily pour
through the court.
In spite of its apparent enjoyment of London smoke and fog the plane-tree is not even a Britisher. Its introduction to England has been credited to Francis Bacon, but Loudon declares it was in our gardens prior to 1548—thirteen years before the birth of the Lord Keeper.
The leaves of the Plane are very similar to those of the Sycamore and False-Sycamore (see page 134), but one feature
