226 THE WESTERN PLANE. 



globular fruit. The foliage is rather sparse, of a light, 

 rusty green, and resembles in many points that of the 

 common grapevine. Near the insertion of every leaf, 

 and a little above it, is a stipule forming a plaited ruff 

 that encircles the growing branch. These ruff-like appen- 

 dages are among its generic marks of distinction. 



" The Buttonwood," says Michaux, " astonishes the eye 

 by the size of its trunk and the amplitude of its head. 

 But the white elm has a more majestic appearance, which 

 is owing to its great elevation, to the disposition of its 

 principal limbs, and the extreme elegance of its sum- 

 mit." He considers the Buttonwood "the largest and 

 loftiest tree of the United States." He mentions one 

 growing on a small island in the Ohio Eiver, which at five 

 feet from the ground measured forty feet and four inches 

 in circumference; and he found another on the right bank 

 of the Ohio that measured, at four feet from the ground, 

 forty-seven feet in circumference, or nearly sixteen feet in 

 diameter, and showed no marks of decay. He states that 

 the Buttonwood is confined " to moist, wet grounds, where 

 the soil is loose, deep, and fertile, and it is never found 

 upon dry lands of irregular surface." 



It was probably the rapid growth and great size of the 

 Buttonwood that caused our ancestors to plant it so ex- 

 tensively as a shade-tree. It rises also to a great height 

 before it sends out any branches, thereby affording the 

 inmates of houses the advantage of its shade, without 

 "intercepting their prospect, and without interfering with 

 passing objects when planted by roadsides. But these 

 noble trees, so conspicuous and so thrifty thirty years 

 ago, have been slowly perishing from some mysterious 

 cause which no theory can satisfactorily explain. It is 

 generally supposed to be connected with a want of hardi- 

 hood in the constitution of the tree, that renders it unable 

 to endure all the vicissitudes of a Northern climate. 



