Trees, purveyors of fruit, pine resin, oil, syrup... occupy a privileged place in most civilisations.
Greek mythology goes so far as to attribute divinatory virtues to them.
In the sacred grove of Dodona, in northwestern Greece, there was, for example, one of the oldest sanctuaries, in which people came to collect the oracles of Zeus, deduced by the priests, listening to the rustle of the wind in the oak leaves...
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The plane tree, an eminently Parisian tree
Did you know that the city of Paris has around 100,000 so-called avenue trees?
According to figures from June 2015, as recalled by Henriette Walter and Pierre Avenas in
The Majestic History of the Name of Trees
, a little over 60% of these trees are plane trees (34%), chestnut trees (16%) and lime trees ( 11%).
In most European languages, the name "plane tree" comes from the Latin
platanus
(f.), itself borrowed from the Greek
platanos
(f.).
The tree was appreciated since ancient times!
In Greek, the adverb
khamai
which means "on the ground", becomes the prefix of names of plants but also of animals, such as the chameleon.
You are now ready to start this short test on the name and origin of trees!