FOREST TREES. 



i95 



generally called Sycamore, the large lobed leaves resembling the 

 Sycamore or broad-leaved Maple. The common term, Button-wood, is 

 derived from the globular heads containing the seeds. These button- 

 like seed vessels remain attached by long thready stalks to the branchlets 

 during the winter. 



This noble tree is widely diffused through the western portion of 

 Canada, especially tovvard Lake Erie and the central townships of the 

 western peninsula. In the rich and fertile lands between the big lakes, 

 it reaches to a great height and bulk, its average height being 120 feet, 

 and 60 feet to the spread of the limbs ; not uncommonly 60 inches in 

 diameter. The wood is hard to split, laborious to chop, and diffi- 

 cult to burn until it has been seasoned for a year or more. The huge 

 trees are cut down and let't till the leaves and brushwood are dry enough 

 to help consume the logs. Settlers that left the eastern and northern 

 woods to locate themselves on the more fertile lands in the west, com- 

 plained greatly of the difficulty attending the clearance of the forest, 

 where these trees abounded, till they learned the necessity of letting 

 the newly cut trees lie till they were fit for cutting up and burning. 



The delay in clearing the land was tedious, but it answered in the 

 end. As a general rule we see the largest growth of trees in the richest 

 soil, even the Pine is no exception, as the finest Pines are to be found 

 on the hardwood lands mixed with the deciduous trees ; of nobler growth, 

 than those that grow on the Pine ridges and sandy lands. 



The bark of the Button-wood exfoliates and falls off in large plates, 

 which distinguishes it from all other forest trees, excepting the shaggy- 

 barked Hickory which also sheds the bark. The Oriental Plane follows 

 the same rule as the Occidental, both trees are often seen in plantations 

 in the Old Country introduced on account of the luxuriant foliage and 

 singularity of habit. 



The flowers of the Button-wood are greenish, in dense heads, on 

 long drooping stalks. Dr. Lindley, writing of the Plane, says : " The 

 members of the Plane tribe are natives of Barbary, the Levant and 

 North America. The white wood is valuable. The bark of the Platanus, 

 or Plane, is remarkable tor falling off in hard irregular patches, a circum- 

 stance that arises from the rigidity of the tissues on account of which it 

 is incapable of stretching as the wood beneath increases in diameter." 

 The Red Pine, Finns resiiiosa, also parts with the bark in thin round 

 patches, when growing on poor sandy flats. I do not know if this is a 

 general habit of the species. Possibly Lindley's explanation of the 

 shedding of the bark in the Plane and Hickory, may refer -to similar 

 cases in other trees. 



