142 BOTANY OF THE 
selves with facility to the less extreme climate of the United States. 
The Locust (Robinia Pseudo-acacia), so common and esteemed in 
English gardens, is pretty much discarded here and in many other 
parts of the Union, as a “ shade tree,” from constant liability to 
having its top destroyed by a wood-boring insect, against the 
ravages of which no certain and effectual preventive has yet been 
discovered.* The Honey, or Sweet Locust (@leditschia tri- 
acantha), thrives vigorously, and splendid specimens may be 
remarked on the Bowling-green. The remaining trees, commonly 
seen in the public walks, as the Park, Battery, &c., are chiefly 
American and European Poplars, especially the Abele (Populus 
alba), which thrives even in the sandy soil and sultry atmosphere 
of Charleston, S. C., the Occidental Plane (Platanus occi- 
dentalis), and the Elm (Ulmus Americana). Tt is singular that 
in this, its native climate, the Occidental Plane is subject to a 
sudden and unaccountable decay, similar to what destroyed great 
numbers of the same tree in England many years since, and which, 
I believe, still occasionally affects its congeners, P. orientalis, and 
P. acerifolia, after arriving with us at a certain age and stature. 
In both countries, the species seems alike apt to be injured by the 
late frosts of spring. At that season, in 1842, 1843, 1844, the 
Planes throughout the New England States suffered severely from 
this cause, the larger trees particularly; and for several weeks 
many of them seemed to have been killed entirely. Some, indeed, 
were destroyed: the rest recovered more or less completely, but 
with the loss, in nearly all, of the extremities of the branches.t 
The vacant lots and waste places in and around New York are 
covered with Datwra Stramonium, and its purple variety D. Tatula 
(these pass insensibly into each other), Xanthium strumarium and X. 
spinosum (all these are introduced), Ambrosia trifida and A. elatior ?, 
* For an account of these wood-boring and other enemies of the Locust Tree, vide 
A Treatise on some of the Insects of New England which are injurious to vegeta- _ 
tion, by T. W. Harris, M.D. Boston, 1842, 8vo. 
t See ‘A Report on the Trees and Shrubs of Massachusetts,” published by order of 
the State Legislature. Boston, 1846. 8vo.:—a work, — nanm os of : 2 
eurious and original information on the subject treated, 
