Platanus occidentalis L.

Horticultural & Botanical History

‘Platanus occidentalis inhabits the borders of streams and lakes and rich bottom-lands, and ranges from southeastern New Hampshire and southern Maine to northern Vermont and the valley of the Don near the northern shores of Lake Ontario, westward to eastern Nebraska and Kansas, and southward to northern Florida, central Alabama and Mississippi, and the valley of the Brazos River in Texas, and thence southwestward in Texas to the Devil’s River valley. A common tree in all this region, it is most abundant and grows to its largest size on the bottom-lands of the basins of the lower Ohio and of the Mississippi Rivers.

The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood of Platanus occidentalis is 0.5678, a cubic foot weighing 35.39 pounds. It is largely used and is the favorite material for the boxes in which tobacco is packed, for ox-yokes, and butchers’ blocks, and for furniture and the interior finish of houses, where its broad conspicuous medullary rays and cheerful color make it valuable.

Platanus occidentalis was introduced into English gardens by the younger Tradescant early in the seventeenth century, and the first account of it, published in 1640 in Parkinson’s Theatrum Botanicum, relates to a tree cultivated in England. It is now occasionally planted in American andEuropean parks and avenues, although as an ornamental tree its value is impaired by the fungal disease which strips it of its young leaves in spring, and stunts and often deforms its growth.

Always conspicuous from the pale often mottled bark which covers the upper parts of the trunk and branches, the Sycamore, which is the most massive if not the tallest deciduous-leaved tree of the North American forest, is a magnificent object as it grows in the deep alluvial soil of the bottom-lands of the Mississippi basin, with its long ponderous branches and its broad leafy crown of bright green cheerful foliage raised high above the heads of its sylvan associates.’ [Sargent - Silva of North America vol.7, p.103, pl.CCCXXVI/1895].

Introduced to Britain in 1636.  [JD].

History at Camden Park

Requested from J. Abbott of Hobart on 16th June 1846, the only record I have found.  [MP A2933-2, p.159].

Notes

Platanus occidentalis Hook. & Arn. (1833) = Platanus racemosa Nutt.

Neither Platanus occidentalis  nor Platanus orientalis are commonly planted as street trees today, they have been almost completely replaced by the hybrid London Plane Tree. ‘Gleason, H. A. The history of the London plane. Jour. New York Bot. Gard. 20: 216-220. Nov., 1919. — Largely extracts from “The history of the London plane” by A. Henry and M. G. Flood in Proceed. Royal Irish Acad. Describes in some detail history of the London plane, Platanus acerifolia, usually regarded in the United States as Platanus orientalis. Former is common street tree, has remarkable vigor, and is very resistant to smoke, drought and other unfavorable city conditions. P. orientalis is rarely planted as street tree. London plane probably a first-generation hybrid between P. orientalis and P. occidentalis, which explains its remarkable vigor and the great variability of its seedlings, part of which are similar to supposed parents, and part combine characters of both parents in various ways. Possibly originated at Oxford Botanic Garden about 1670 from chance hybridization. Experimental proof for this assumption could be obtained in the United States where adult trees of both natural species are to be found. — O. E. White.’  [Botanical Abstracts vol.4, p.90/1920].