248 SYLVA AMERICANA. 



tions appear to be the most widely diffused, and not to be entirely 

 unknown in those districts where the others are habitually 

 employed ; for this reason we have adopted it, though a less 

 appropriate appellation than that of Plane Tree. The buttonwood 

 does not grow towards the north-east, beyond Portland in the 

 state of Maine ; but it is found farther west at the extremity of 

 Lake Champlain and at Montreal. Proceeding from Boston 

 and the shores of Lake Champlain towards the west and the 

 south-west, this tree is continually met with over a vast tract, 

 comprising the Atlantic and Western States, and extending 

 beyond the Mississippi. The nature of the buttonwood confines 

 it to moist and cool grounds, where the soil is loose, deep and 

 fertile : the luxuriance of its vegetation depends upon the union 

 of these circumstances. It is never found upon dry lands of an 

 irregular surface among the white and red oaks and the walnuts : 

 it is also more rare in all the mountainous tracts of the Alleghanies 

 than in the flat country. In the swamps of Virginia its growth is 

 stinted and in general it does not exceed eight or ten inches in 

 diameter. Farther south, in the lower parts of the Carolinas 

 and Georgia, it is not abundant even on the sides of the rivers, 

 and is not seen in the branch swamps. The cause of its not 

 being found in these small marshes is, perhaps, that the layer of 

 vegetable mould, which is black and always miry, is not 

 sufficiently thick and substantial to support its growth, and that 

 the heat, in this part of the Southern States, is long continued 

 and excessive. This tree in no part of the United States i& 

 more abundant and more vigorous than along the rivers of 

 Pennsylvania and Virginia ; though in the more fertile valleys of 

 the west, its vegetation is still more luxuriant, especially on the 

 banks of the Ohio and of the rivers which flow into it. The bottoms 

 which are watered by these rivers are covered with dark forests, 

 composed of trees of an extraordinary size. The soil is very 

 deep, loose, of a brown color and unctuous to the touch : it 

 appears to have been formed by the slime deposited in the course 

 of ages, at the annual overflowing of the rivers. 



On the margin of the great rivers of the west, the buttonwood 

 is constantly found to be the loftiest and largest tree of the 



