One More on Trees

One more on trees (cf. link). Ah, yes, here it is. I thought it was Sir John Mandeville, but no:

Near the City of Ormuz … In summer they by reason of the heat betake themselves to their garden houses built on walls. And from nine till noon there blowes a winde with such extreme heat from the sand, that it swallowes up a man’s breath and stifleth him, which makes them lie in the water.

There is a great Plaine in which a great tree growth, called the Tree of the Sun, which the Christians call the Dry Tree. This tree is very great and thicke, and hath leaves, which on the one side are white, and on the other side greene. It produces prickles shales like those of a Chesnut, but nothing in them. The wood is solide and strong, yellow like a Boxe. There is no tree within on hundred miles, except on one side, on which are trees within ten miles. In this place, the inhabitants say Alexander the Great fought Darius. ... .

--Marco Polo, Purchases’ Pilgrimes (1625 edition)