Developing fruit of Platanus orientalis near Ajlon, Jordan
THE ORIENTAL PLANE TREE, PLATanus orientalis, is a close relative of the common sycamore, Platanus occidentalis, of eastern North America. It is a putative parent of the London plane tree widely planted in north temperate regions and usually considered a hybrid between P. orientalis and P. occidentalis (P. ×hispanica ‘Acerifolia’). In several translations of the Bible, a species of fig is called “sycamore,” a corruption of “sycamine” and not the plane tree.
The oriental plane tree has broad leaves, mottled brown and white bark, and small, inconspicuous flowers that develop into spherical ball-like fruits. A first encounter with a plane tree draws attention to the unusual bark: the white and brown patches remind me of the markings on a giraffe. The young branches of the tree are white; the trunks of older trees are dark brown. The plane tree frequently sloughs patches of bark, which enables it to survive in areas with serious air pollution: toxic materials are sequestered in the bark that the tree handily sheds.
The largest native stands of this tree I have observed are along the upper reaches of the Jordan River in Israel and also along the Litani and Dog Rivers (Nahr al Kalb) in Lebanon. But sizable specimens are also found near springs. Although the tree may reach a good size, the wood is not as desirable as oak or pistacio; it is difficult to work because of its characteristic cross-fibers. It is now commonly planted as a shade tree along streets of the region.
Plane tree in March, Barada River, Damascus.
The mottled bark is characteristic of the plane tree. In March, in Damascus, along the Barada River.
While the oriental plane tree was widely planted in Greek and Roman periods and linked with Socrates and Pliny (Meiggs 1982), it is less certain that this tree can be included in a definitive list of trees of the holy books. It is not included in the Quran, and its possible exclusion from the biblical text may be a result of its inferior wood or because of its limited distribution, usually near perennial rivers or springs.
Two likely places where plane is suggested are verses in Genesis and Ezekiel. In what might be the first case of genetic engineering in history, Jacob designed an experiment to insure that he would indeed receive the blessing promised to him by God. His hypothesis was simple—if the goats saw mottled branches while they were in heat, the product of fertilization would lead to mottled goats, and he told Laban he would segregate these livestock from Laban’s holdings as his payment: “Jacob then got fresh shoots from poplar [Populus euphratica], almond [Prunus dulcis] and plane trees, and peeled them in white strips, laying bare the white part of the shoots. He set up the shoots he had peeled in front of the animals, in the troughs, in the waterholes where the animals came to drink. Since they mated when they came to drink, the goats thus mated in front of the shoots and so the goats produced striped, spotted and speckled young” (Genesis 30:37–39, NJB). I consider that plane tree fits well here because poplar is found along watercourses, though almond is not a wetland tree.
In Ezekiel, the King of Egypt is likened to a tree, a simile used elsewhere in the Quran and the Bible regarding people: “There was no cedar like it in the garden of God, no cypress had branches such as these, no plane tree could match its boughs, no tree in the garden of God could rival its beauty” (Ezekiel 31:8, NJB). Because a feature of the oriental plane is its large boughs, the image of that tree fits in this verse, though caution is needed in being too literal about an image.
