Dimitrios Oreopoulos, the Plane Tree of Kos and the Belfast City Hospital

The Oriental Plane Tree (Platanus Orientalis), not to be confused with the better known London Plane Tree (Platanus Acerifolia), is one of Europe’s longest-lived trees. A native of SE Europe and Asia Minor, it is occasionally found in British parks and gardens, having been cultivated there since the sixteenth century. It can reach 100 feet in height and grows well in open ground, its branches, with their broad palmate leaves, spreading widely from a relatively short and rugged trunk. Its longevity is well attested. A group of trees by the Bosporus are said to have sheltered the crusading knights of Godfrey de Bouillon in the eleventh century. However, the specimen best known to the medical profession is the tree on the Aegean island of Kos (Fig 1), sometimes claimed to be over 2400 years old, under which Hippocrates, the ‘father of medicine’, who practised in the 5th century BC, reputedly sat to consult and teach.