TtiE WESTERN PLANE. 89 



be confined by other trees, but does best in alluvial 

 valleys, near the margins of streams. Its timber when 

 young is of a yellowish-white colour, but when old it 

 assumes a brownish hue, with a fine grain which takes 

 a high polish, and is thus esteemed for certain purposes 

 in cabinet-making. 



The tree frequently attains a height of from 

 seventy, to ninety feet in favourable situations, and 

 grows rapidly. 



TJie Western Plane (P. occidentalis). This tree 

 also grows to a great height and makes rapid progress, 

 a tree of this species in the garden of Lambeth Palace 

 being recorded to have grown where it was placed 

 near a pond, to the height of eighty feet in twenty 

 years ; while one has been described situated in Chelsea 

 Hospital Gardens, extending its roots towards the 

 Thames, whose height was 1 1 5 feet, and girth, a foot 

 from the ground, fifteen feet. 



It is a. native of North America, being found on 

 the banks of the great rivers of Virginia, and Pennsyl- 

 vania, and the Ohio and its tributaries, having been 

 introduced into Britain about the year 1630. It 

 readily grows from cuttings, but is best propagated by 

 layers, the treatment being the same as previously 

 recommended. It resembles very much the appear- 

 ance of the Eastern plane, the leaves being large, thin, 

 angled, and lobed, but the fruit balls are smaller than 

 those of the other species. Its shoots also grow in. 

 the same manner, and they are equally affected by 

 cold weather, wearing a scathed or scorched look 

 when pinched by frost or cold, which it loses as the 

 summer advances, and becomes clothed in richest 

 green. It grows with greater rapidity than P. orientalis, 



