PLATANACE^. 



SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 



103 



slightly cordate 



curved remote acuminate teeth, or entire, with undulate margins ; they 

 or wedge-shaped and decurrent on the petioles at the base, with stout yellow ribs and veins, thin 

 firm, bright green on the upper surface, paler on the lower, and glabrous, with the exception of a co^ 

 of pale pubescence along the ribs and principal veins, ai 



d 



veins, and are four to seven inches in length and 

 breadth, or twice as large on vigorous shoots, when they are frequently furnished with dentate basal 



Jightly angled puberulo 



petioles 



d with pale pub 



The 



stipules are an inch to an inch and a half long and entire or sinuate-toothed 



The 



lobes ; they are bo 



cence. 



peduncles are coated with pale tomentum, and generally bear one and sometimes two heads of flowers. 



The heads of fruit, which are usually solitary or rarely spicate, are an inch in diameter, and hang on 



slender glabrous stems three to six inches long. The akenes are about two thirds of an inch in length, 



and are truncate or obtusely rounded at the apex. 



Plataiius occidentalis inhabits the borders of streams and lakes and rich bottom-lands, and ranges 

 from southeastern New Hampshire and southern Maine to northern Vermont and the valley of the Don 



' the northern shores of Lake Ontario,^ westward 

 orthern Florida, central Alabama and Mississippi 



Nebraska^ and Kansas, and 



thward 



the valley of the Brazos River in Texas, and 



in 



th 



thence southwestward in Texas to the Devil's River valley. A common tree 



most abundant and grows to its largest size on the bottom-lands of the basins of the lower Ohio and of 



the Mississippi Rivers.^ 



The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood of Plataniis occidentalis is 0.5678, a cubic foot 

 weighing 35.39 pounds. It is largely used and is the favorite material for the boxes in which tobacco is 

 packed, for ox-yokes, and butchers' blocks, and for furniture and the interior finish of houses, where its 

 broad conspicuous medullary rays and cheerful color make it valuable. 



Platanits occidentcdls was introduced into English gardens by the younger Tradescant early in 

 the seventeenth century,'* and the first account of it, published in 1640 in Parkinson's Tlieatrum 

 Botanicwn^ relates to a tree cultivated in England. It is now occasionally planted in American and 

 European ^ parks and avenues, although as an ornamental tree its value is impaired by the fungal disease 

 which strips it of its young leaves in spring, and stunts and often deforms its growth. 



Always conspicuous from the pale often mottled bark which covers the upper parts of the trunk 

 and branches, the Sycamore,^ which is the most massive if not the tallest deciduous-leaved tree of the 

 North American forest, is a magnificent object as it grows in the deep alluvial soil of the bottom-lands 

 of the Mississippi basin, with its long ponderous branches and its broad leafy crown of bright green 

 cheerful foHage raised high above the heads of its sylvan associates. 



^ Brunei, Cat Veg. Lig. Can. 45. — Macoun, Cat Can, PL 432. Cephalanthus capitulis penduliSj Golden, Act. Hort. Ups. 1743, 85 



2 Bessey, Rep. Nebraska State Board Agric. 1894, 105. (PI. Novebor.). 



8 Ridgway, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus. 1882, 73. ® It is frequently stated that Platanus occidentalis is common in 



* Alton, Hort. Kew. iii. 365. — Loudon, Arh. Brit. iv. 2043, f. European plantations ; but, so far as I have been able to observe, 



1959, 1960. 



it is now exceedingly rare in western and central Europe, where I 



^ Platanus occidentalis aut VirginiensiSy 1427. — Boerhaave, Ind, have seen only a few individuals. 



Alt. Hort. Lugd. Bat. ii. 209. 



sometimes 



Platanus Novi Orbis^foUis Vespertilionum alas re/erentibuSy globulis and Water Beech. In Europe, Sycamore, the common name of the 



parviSf Plukenet, Aim. Bot. 300. 



different 



Nat 



Platanus foliis lobatis^ Linnaeus, Hort. Cliff. 447 

 Leyd. Prodr. 78. — Clayton, FL Virgin, ed. 2, 151. 



Fl, 



Pseudo-PlatanuSj and never to the Plane, while the Sycomorus of 

 the ancients is the Ficv^ Sycomorus of northeastern Africa. (See 

 Garden and Forest^ ii. 349.) 



