"(...) I pass the London Plane shown here most days as I cross Brunswick Gardens. I am not the only person who is taken with it: when I was making some primitive measurements and taking photographs a couple came up and told me that they felt as I did. I led them astray, however, because although I remembered rightly that Alan Mitchell says in his Field Guide to the Trees of Britain and Northern Europe that the circumference of a tree in inches at five feet above the ground gives a good idea of its age in years, I had forgotten that he also says that planes are an exception and increase at twice that rate. So even if my efforts with a piece of string were accurate, the 21 ft girth translates into 125 not 250 years. But Al Smith, who is in charge of trees for Camden Council, tells me that plane trees in Lincoln’s Inn are reckoned to be 180 years old and that, as these are of a like size, I was, perhaps, less far off than I thought.
(...)The origins of the London Plane are mysterious. It is almost certainly a hybrid: the result of a cross which took place somewhere in Spain or Southern France around 1650 between a specimen of the Oriental Plane (Platanus orientalis) – native in South-Eastern Europe and Asia – and the American Plane (Platanus occidentalis).
(...)The London Plane proved itself, above all, as a town tree. It is tough; its vigour, smooth leaves (which the rain washes clean) and a bark which is renewed by constant flaking make it immune to the effects of filthy air. Soot is no longer a problem but the London Plane is still regularly planted. Its only bad habit is producing hairy seeds and shoots; the tiny fibres irritate the skin and lungs, so tree work is now done in winter. It must be admired in our climate for itself alone: planes, planted in Southern Europe to give shade, are planted in London for magnificence.
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