VII. THE BUTTONWOOD TREE. 237 



liant polish, is seen in the famous Scotch snuff-boxes, which 

 are made of it. 



Mr. Nuttall has described* a remarkably distinct species of 

 plane tree, which he calls the California buttonwood, Platanus 

 racemosus. The leaves are " divided more than half way down 

 into five, sharp-pointed, lanceolate portions, of which the two 

 lower are the smallest ; all the divisions are quite entire, two of 

 them in small leaves are suppressed, thus producing a leaf of 

 only three parts. Above, as usual, the surface is at first clad 

 with a yellowish, copious down, formed of ramified hairs, 

 which quickly falls off and spreads itself in the atmosphere. 

 The under surface of the leaves is, however, always copiously 

 clad with a coat of whitish wool, which remains. The young 

 leaves, clad in their brown, pilose clothing, have a very uncom- 

 mon appearance, and feel exactly like a piece of stout, thick, 

 woollen cloth. The branchlets, petioles and peduncles are 

 equally villous. The male catkins are small, less in size than 

 peas, full of long haired scales, and with unusually small an- 

 thers. The female catkins are in racemes of three to five in 

 number, with remarkably long styles, being between two and 

 three tenths of an inch in length, and persistent on the ripe 

 balls. The raceme with the full grown balls measures nine 

 inches. The tree has, therefore, a very unusual appearance, 

 filled with these very long, pendulous racemes, each bearing 

 from three to four, or even five balls, at the distance of about 

 an inch from each other. The stigmas are at first of a deep 

 and bright brown." Mr. Nuttall supposes the wood to be su- 

 perior to that of the common species, harder, more durable, and 

 less liable to warp. 



The leaves and fruit of this tree are figured in Nuttall's 

 Supplement to the North American Sylva, I, Plate 15, and in 

 Audubon's Birds of America, Plate 362. 



The plane tree may be propagated by seed, by layers or by 

 cuttings. The best and surest way is by seed. These are 

 ripe, in our climate, in October or November. They may be 

 readily separated from the globular aments, by beating or by 



* Nuttall's Supplement to the N. A. Sylva, I, 47—48. 



