Kos has the Plane Tree of Hippocrates, the island's most famous tree, in Platia Platanou in the old town. Legend says the father of medicine taught beneath a plane here; the Municipality of Kos says the present tree is no more than five centuries old and may have grown from the original's roots. Its hollow trunk is 12 metres round, and it has been a protected natural monument since 1985.
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Oriental Plane (Platanus orientalis) · 400-500 years · Kos old town, beside the Defterdar (Loggia) mosque
Hippocrates almost certainly never sat under this tree, and the town that looks after it says so itself. The legend holds that the father of medicine, born on Kos around 460 BC, taught his students beneath a plane in this square. The Municipality of Kos writes that the present tree cannot be more than five centuries old, though it may have grown from a shoot of the original roots.
So the honest age is roughly 400 to 500 years. The regional tourism site adds that it already looked old in nineteenth-century pictures. A claim of more than 2,300 years still circulates, and nothing supports it.
The tree is impressive without the legend. The municipality gives its trunk a circumference of 12 metres, and that trunk is hollow, eaten out by fungi and wood-boring insects. The crown spreads over Platia Platanou, the Plane Tree Square, on the mound between the ancient port and Finikon Street, with the old Loggia mosque beside it.
The legend has travelled further than the tree ever could. Another story has a seed from it carried to Montpellier and to other medical schools, so the tradition of learning under Hippocrates' plane continues in places he never saw.
It has been a protected natural monument since 1985. The square is open at all hours and a few minutes on foot from the harbour and the Knights' castle. This is the island's most famous tree, and it is rarely alone.