ARMON ; Chaldee, , Syriac, \O? ; Arabic, ip7tcfrapos; Vulg.
0/atanus; Luth. alzorn; A. a This description agrees well with the plane-tree (Platanes Orientalis), which is adopted by all the ancient translators, to which the balance of critical opinion inclines, and which actually grows in Pales tine. The beech, the maple, and the chestnut have been adopted, in different modern versions, as repre senting the Hebrew Armon; but scarcely any one now doubts that it means the plane-tree. It may be remarked that this tree is in Genesis associated with others—the willow and the poplar—whose habits agree with it ; they are all trees of the low grounds, and love to grow where the soil is rich and humid. This is strikingly illustrated by the fact that Russell (N. H. of Aleppo, i. 47) expressly names the plane, the willow, and the poplar (along with the ash), as trees which grow in the same situations near Aleppo.
But this congruity would be lost if the chestnut were understood, as that tree prefers dry and hilly situations. There is a latent beauty also in the passage in Ezekiel, where, in describing the great ness and glory of Assyria, the prophet says, ' The Armon-trees were not like his boughs, nor any tree in the garden of God like unto him for beauty.' This not only expresses the grandeur of the tree, but is singularly appropriate from the fact that the plane-trees (chenare, as they are called) in the plains of Assyria are of extraordinary size and beauty, in both respects exceeding even those of Palestine. It consists with our own experience that one may travel far in Western Asia without meeting such trees, and so many together, as occur in the chenar-groves of Assyria and Media.
The Oriental plane-tree ranks in the Linnman class and order Ilioneccia Polyandrza, and in the natural order among the Platanacete. Western most Asia is its native country, although, according to Professor Royle, it extends as far eastward as Cashmere. The stem is tall, erect, and covered with a smooth bark which annually falls off. The flowers are small and scarcely distinguishable: they come out a little before the leaves. The wood of the plane-tree is fine-grained, hard, and rather brittle than tough; when old, it is said to acquire dark veins, and to take the appearance of walnut wood.
In those situations which are favourable to its growth, huge branches spread out in all directions from the massive trunk, invested with broad, deeply divided, and glossy green leaves. This body of rich foliage, joined to the smoothness of the stem, and the symmetry of the general growth, renders the plane-tree one of the noblest objects in the vegetable kingdom. It has now, and had also of old (Min Nat. Hist. xii. 1), the reputation of being the tree which most effectually excludes the sun's beams in summer, and most readily admits them in winter—thus affording the best shelter from the ex tremes of both seasons.
For this reason it was planted near public build ings and palaces, a practice which the Greeks and Romans adopted ; and the former delighted to adorn with it their academic walks and places of public exercise. In the East, the plane seems to have been considered sacred, as the oak was for merly in Britain. ThiS distinction is in most
countries awarded to the most magnificent species of tree which it produces. In Palestine, for in stance, where the plane does not appear to have been very common, the terebinth seems to have possessed pre-eminence. [ELAN.] No one is ignorant of the celebrated story of Xerxes arrest ing the march of his grand army before a noble plane-tree in Lydia, that he might render honour to it, and adorn its boughs with golden chains, bracelets, and other rich ornaments—an action misunderstood, and egregiously misrepresented by YElian (Van Hist. ii. 14).
The Oriental plane endures our own climate well, and grows to a fine tree; but not to the enormous size which it sometimes attains in the East. Several grand old plane-trees have been mentioned. Pausanias (1. viii. c. 23) notices a noble plane in Arcadia, the planting of which was ascribed, by tradition, to Menelaus ; so that if this tradition were entitled to credit (and it claims little), it must, when he wrote, although in a sound state, have been above 130o years old. Pliny, in his curious chapter on this tree (Nat. Hist. xii. I), mentions one in Lycia, in the trunk of which had been gradually formed an immense cavern, eighty bet in circumference. L. Mutianus, thrice consul, and governor of the province, with eighteen other persons, often dined and supped commodiously within it. If nothing more were known of this L. Mutianus, we should like him for the pleasure, not unmingled with regret, with which he records the satisfaction which he occasionally derived from hearing the rain patter upon the leaves overhead, while he and his company sat dry and safe within : it was the music of their feast. Caligula also had a tree of this sort at his villa near Velitrx, the hol low of which accommodated fifteen persons at dinner with a proper suite of attendants. The em peror called it his nest;' and it is highly probable that his friend Herod Agrippa may occasionally have been one of the fifteen birds who nestled there along with him. Modem travellers also notice similar trees. Delon (Obs. Sing. 1. ii. p. 105), La Roque (Vay. de Syrie, pp. 197-199), and others, mention the groves of noble planes which adorn the plain of Antioch ; and the last-named traveller records a night's rest which he enjoyed under planes of great beauty in a valley of Lebanon (p. 76). That they are among the principal trees in the plantations near Aleppo has already been observed, on the authority of Russell. Bucking ham names them among the trees which line the Jabbok (Travels in Palestine, ii. roS). Evelyn (in his Sylva) seems to ascribe the introduction of the plane-tree into England to the great Lord Bacon, who planted some which were still flourishing at Verulam in 1706. This was, perhaps, the first plantation of any note; but it appears from Tur ner's Herbal (published in 1551), that the tree was known and cultivated in this country before the chancellor was born. (Besides the authorities quoted, see Hiller, Hicrophyticon, cap. 43 ; Celsius, Hierabotanicon, 512-516; and Winer's Realworter buch, in Ahorn').—J. K.