328 Lake Maxinkuckee, Physical and Biological Survey 



but with the opening up of the country, giving the winds greater 

 play, the seeds, which are well adapted to wind dispersal, were scat- 

 tered farther and more widely by it than heretofore. 



From the lumberman's and woodman's point of view, the syca- 

 more has a low value. The lumber is brittle, very liable to wind- 

 shake, but very difficult to split. The tree has, however, a high 

 ornamental value. It has a peculiar habit of shedding its bark 

 every year; this process is sometimes gradual, so that it is not 

 noticeable in the act; at other places the shedding of the bark is 

 an active process, which usually takes place in July or August and 

 occupies only a few weeks, the bark falling in considerable patches 

 about the trees. The bark from which the old patches have re- 

 cently fallen is more or less greenish, soon blanching to snowy 

 whiteness. 



The sycamore is said to make a good street tree ; many of the 

 streets of Washington, D. C, are bordered by the oriental species, 

 which is not so handsome. When grown in the open this tree is 

 quite regularly pyramidal; in natural conditions they are quite ir- 

 regular in growth, like the white-oak. It is in its native setting, 

 that some gigantic stately old tree of this species, with bark of 

 snowy whiteness, leaning over some water course and glimpsed 

 through the distance and through vistas of native trees, shows at 

 its best — standing like Nausicia the white-armed, at the water's 

 edge — and the tale of the Persian conqueror's having fallen in love 

 with a plane-tree and adorning it with necklaces and jewels does 

 not seem so improbable. 



In recent years, both in the neighborhood of Lake Maxinkuckee 

 and other regions where sycamores abound, it was noticed that the 

 upper surface of the leaves turned a dead sickly whitish during the 

 summer. This is due to the presence of a species of lace-bug which 

 is almost as constant an associate of the sycamore as the potato 

 beetle of the potato, and both adult and young bugs are usually 

 abundant on the underside of the leaves during late summer. The 

 adult bugs winter under the scales of bark. These bugs are among 

 the most beautiful objects that can be obtained for examination 

 under a lens. 



Near the road by Murray's, a sycamore sprout developed 

 which was peculiar in having variegated leaves, the leaves having 

 large splotches of white, with clouded splotches. The leaves came 

 out this way every year. On the Yellow River is a tree fifteen or 

 twenty feet high, all the leaves of which are similarly marked and 

 forming a beautiful and unusual sight. Such a form would be well 

 worthy of propagation by grafts or cuttings. 



