90 PLATANACEAE. 
PLATANUS. Sycamore. 
(Family Platanaceae). 
Trees, at length large and open, 
with exfoliating bark: deciduous. 
Twigs moderate, rounded, glab- 
rous, buff, zig-zag: pith moderate, 
pale or brownish, rounded, con- 
tinuous. Buds. solitary, rather 
large, sessile, conical, with a single 
glossy closed scale, the end-bud 
lacking. Leaf-scars alternate, 2- 
ranked, nearly annular and en- 
circling the buds, somewhat cre- _ 
nate and elevated: bundle-traces 5, 
compound or seemingly 7- 9, large: 
stipule-scars narrow, encircling 
the twig. Fruits, in fluffy balls on 
long stalks, are present in winter. 
The familiar conical buds of 
the buttonball. or sycamore at- 
tracted the attention of Malpighi 
who figured them, and sycamore 
wood, on plate 9 of his Opera 
Omnia as early as 1687. Each of the three caps within which 
a bud is enclosed represents a pair of stipules united by their 
edges. The gum that bathes these caps is the product of a 
type of secretion-glands known as colleters. 
Winter-character references:—P. occidentalis. Blakeslee 
& Jarvis, 330, 482, pl.; Brendel, pl. 3; Hitchcock (1), 4; (3), 
17; (4), 138, f. 95-8; Otis, 140; Ward, 1:35, f. 19-20; 118, 
f. 59; 214, f. 109; Willkomm, 4, 8, 19, f. 13.—P. orientalis. 
Schneider, f. 107. 
Fruit-ball mostly solitary on the stalk. (1). P. occidentalis. 
Fruit-balls mostly 2 on the stalk. P. acerifolia. 
Fruit-balls characteristically 3 on the stalk. P. orientalis. 
