CHAPTER XIII. 



I. Simple Alternate Leaves. 



2. With teeth. B. Edge divided. 



BUTTONWOOD AND LIQUIDAMBER. 



The buttonwood, which is also com- 

 Buttonwood or 



Sycamore, monly but quite improperly called 



Platanus sycamore, is a tall, ruggedly hand- 



some tree, which sometimes attains a 

 height of 150 feet. Gray calls it our largest tree, 

 and Whittier has made it celebrated in his poem 

 entitled The Sycamores. The Occidental plane trees 

 Hugh Tallant's sycamores, sung by the poet 

 were planted by the Irish pioneer in 1738, over a 

 century and a half ago, beside the Merrimac River, 

 where now stands the city of Haverhill, Mass.* Be- 

 neath their shade, tradition says, Washington passed 

 in his triumphal journey through the' North in 1789, 



* Only two or three of these trees now remain standing ; they 

 measure about six feet in trunk circumference. Formerly a long 

 row of them adorned what is known as the Saltonstall estate. 



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