CHAP. evil. PLATANACEiE. PLa'tANUS. 2047 



notice of the picturesque eye. " The Occidental plane has a very picturesque 

 stem. It is smooth, and of a light ash-colour, and has the property of 

 throwing off its bark in scales ; thus naturally cleansing itself, at least its 

 larger boughs, from moss and other parasitical encumbrances. This would 

 be no recommendation of it in a picturesque light, if the removal of these 

 encumbrances did not substitute as great a beauty in their room. These 

 scales are very irregular, falling off sometimes in one part, and sometimes in 

 another ; and, as the under bark is, immediately after its excoriation, of a 

 lighter hue than the upper, it offers to the pencil those smart touches which 

 have so much effect in painting. These flakes, however, would be more 

 beautiful if they fell off in a circular form, instead of a perpendicular one : 

 they would correspond and unite better with the circular form of the bole. 

 No tree forms a more pleasing shade than the Occidental plane. It is full- 

 leaved ; and its leaf is large, smooth, of a fine texture, and seldom injured by 

 insects. Its lower branches, shooting horizontally, soon take a direction to 

 the ground ; and the spray seems more sedulous than that of any tree we 

 have, by twisting about in various forms, to fill up every little vacuity with 

 shade. At the same time, it must be owned, the twisting of its branches is a 

 disadvantage to this tree, as we have just observed it is to the beech, when it 

 is stripped of its leaves and reduced to a skeleton. It has not the natural 

 appearance which the spray of the oak, and that of many other trees, discover 

 in winter ; nor, indeed, does its foliage, from the largeness of the leaf, and the 

 mode of its growth, make the most picturesque appearance in summer. One 

 of the finest Occidental planes I am acquainted with stands in my own garden 

 at Vicar's Hill ; where its boughs, feathering to the ground, form a canopy of 

 above 50 ft. in diameter. The Oriental plane is a tree nearly of the same kind, 

 only its leaf is more palmated ; nor has it so great a disposition to overshadow 

 the ground as the Occidental plane ; at least, I never saw any in our cUmate 

 form so noble a shade, though in the East it is esteemed among the most 

 shady and most magnificent of trees." (Reyn. on For. Seen., vol. i. p. 53.) 



Soil, Situation, Propagation, S^e. What has been said on these subjects as 

 applicable to P. orientalis is equally so to this species ; the chief difference 

 being, that P. occidentalis strikes very readily from cuttings, and is much more 

 like the willow, in requiring, when it is intended to attain a large size, to be 

 planted near water. It is sometimes raised from seeds im[;orted from America. 

 A great many plants were laised in this way by Mr. Cobbett, from 1826 to 

 1830. The seed is imported in the globular catkins, or balls, which Cobbett 

 broke to pieces by rubbing them with the hand to separate the down or 

 wool, as he calls it, from the seeds. The latter, being sifted out of the 

 wool, he soaked in lukewarm water for 48 hours ; he then " took tlie seeds 

 out of the water, and mixed them with finely sifted fresh earth, 10 gallons 

 of earth to one gallon of seeds ; put the mixture upon a smooth place on 

 the bare ground ; turned and remixed the heap every day for fbur or five 

 days, keeping it covered with a mat whenever the turning and mixing was not 

 gomg on ; and as soon as a root began to appear here and there, sowed the 

 seeds upon a bed of sifted earth, mixed with the sifted mould, just as they 

 came out of the heap." {Woodlands, ^ 473.) The seeds received no other 

 covering than the mould with which they were mixed : they were watered 

 every evening with a fine-rosed watering-pot ; and securely shaded from the 

 sun by mats, kept from touching the ground by hoops. These mats were re- 

 moved every evening about an hour after sunset, and were put on again in the 

 morning by sunrise. In about a week, most of the seeds had germinated, and 

 in a short time afterwards the seed leaves appeared. Being gradually inured 

 to the sunshine, till they were hardy enough to be exposed during the whole 

 of the day, by the month of October their growth was finished, and the 

 wood ripe; and next summer they were fit to transplant into nursery lines. 

 As the Occidental plane is very tender when young, Mr. Cobbett did not com- 

 mence his operations with the seed till April ; and, consequently, liis plants 

 were small in October ; but, by sowing in frames in February, as is the prac- 



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