22 March: Plane Trees

In the French Revolutionary Calendar, today is Platane, or Day of the Plane-tree. 10 things you might not know about plane trees:

1. Plane trees belong to the genus Platanus, native to the Northern Hemisphere.
2. They often grow near Water, and in Ancient Greece they were purposely planted near springs and wells; perhaps as sacred guardians of the water supply, perhaps to provide shade to the people who visited to fill their water bottles. There is a myth that Poseidon once turned a young woman into a plane tree because she peed him off in some way. Aristotle and Plato’s famed philosophical schools were held in the shade of plane trees.
3. Classical Chinese poetry often features plane trees as a motif for sorrow, because they shed their leaves in Autumn.
4. An early military camouflage pattern was based on the plane tree’s flaking bark. The German camouflage pattern Platanenmuster ("plane tree pattern"), was designed in 1937–1942 by Johann Georg Otto Schick.
5. In Handel's opera Serse, the famous aria, "Ombra mai fu," is sung by the title character in praise of his favourite plane tree.
6. One feature of this tree is the ability to fuse neighbouring roots or branches together if they grow too close and rub against each other. This can occur not only within a single tree, but between two neighbouring trees, and sometimes even between a plane tree and a tree of a different species.
7. The legendary Dry tree recorded by Marco Polo was possibly a plane. According to legend, it marked the site of the battle between Alexander the Great and Darius III.
8. There’s one species in the genus which isn’t found in the wild. That is the London plane tree, which has been widely planted in London parks and to line streets. At least 15% of the trees lining city streets around the world are London planes, so called because so many of them were planted there during the 18^th and 19^th centuries. This tree is particularly tolerant of urban conditions. Its flaking bark is one method the tree uses to get rid of pollutants, and it tolerates being pollarded, or trimmed to fit its environment.
9. Nobody knows for sure exactly how the London plane came about. It’s a hybrid of the oriental plane and the American plane, which come from two different continents on opposite sides of the world. Some say the two species came together in Spain in the 17^th century quite naturally, and were brought to Britain from there. Others say it was thanks to a botanist and plant collector named John Tradescant the younger, who kept a garden in Vauxhall. Needless to say, he wasn’t the only person around at the time who collected plants. Large National Trust properties often have collections of plants and trees from all over the world, so any keen botanist from the English aristocracy, or person with a lot of money could have had both the parent trees in their gardens.
10. The oldest London planes date from around 1660-80. The oldest living examples are at Buckden. Robert Sanderson, (Bishop of Lincoln 1660-1663), is said to have been presented with two London planes; both are still growing healthily. The oldest in London itself is at Barn Elms, is probably from about 1685, planted on land then belonging to the Archbishop of Canterbury. These are the trees which line The Mall, the Embankment and Berkeley Square. There are 30 London planes in Berkeley Square which were planted in 1789.

Character birthday

Electroflux, aka Leonard Marx, who invented a suit of radiation proof power armour. He worked for Desi Troyes, unaware at first that his programme of nuclear testing was a precursor to a plot to blow up the planet of Infinitus and make himself the sole ruler of the survivors. Electroflux was one of the many pulled through the interdimensional worm hole created by the nuclear test on Bird Island. Now aware of Troyes’s plan, he turned down an offer to become his right hand man on Earth, and teamed up with the Raiders, instead.

Over the Rainbow

'We're not in Trinity anymore,' says Leonard Marx, quoting a line from an old Innovian  movie. The moon is different; the planes flying overhead are different. Nobody has any idea where they are or if it's possible to get home. 

In this strange new world, people from the highly technical Innovia and the less advanced Classica must co-operate in order to survive. In addition, travel through the inter-dimensional wormhole has given some people unusual and unexpected powers.

Innovia mourns the loss of its superhero, Power Blaster, last seen carrying a nuclear bomb to the upper atmosphere away from the inhabited Bird Island. They don't believe he could possibly have survived. Power Blaster has survived, but is close to death and stranded in the new dimension. He is nursed back to health by a Classican woman, Elena. She has no idea who he is, only that she is falling in love with the handsome stranger.  

Shanna sets out to discover what happened to Nathan Tate, who didn't return from his hiking holiday, not knowing her life is about to be turned inside out and upside down. 

Meanwhile, Desi Troyes, the man responsible for the catastrophe, is at large on the new world, plotting how he can transfer his plans for world domination to the planet he now finds himself on - Earth. 

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