SALICACEAE 288 



it rather troublesome, It is this species to which that delightful 

 Poet of Nature, COWPER, refers, where he mentions the 

 " Poplar, that with silver lines his leaf." 



ORDER XCVI. PLATANACEAE. 



Trees, with a watery juice; leaves alternate, petiolate, palmately nerved and lobed, 

 with sheathing intrapetiolar stipules, the petioles tumid and hollow at base, con- 

 oealing the young buds; flowers monoicous, minute, densely crowded in separate 

 naked globose long-peduncled pendulous aments; calyx none: STAMINATE FLOWERS 

 in small deciduous heads ; stamens numerous, mixed with subclavate scales (of 

 ataminodia ?) : PISTILLATE FLOWERS in larger persistent heads ; ovaries numerous, 

 filiform-clavate, mixed with spatulate scales (abortive ovaries?); styles rather 

 lateral, simple, subulate ; fruit a 1-celled 1-seeded clavate coriaceous little nut^ 

 which is invested at base, with tawny pappus-like hairs ; seed pendulous, with 

 fleshy albumen. 



383. PI-AT'AWUS, L. 



[Gr. Platys, broad; in allusion to the ample shade of its foliage.] 

 $g^ The Order consisting of a single Genus, the character of both 

 is necessarily the same. Large frees, with cinereous exfoliating 

 bark. . 



1. P. occidental!*, L. Leaves roundish-pentagonal, sinuate- 

 lobed and dentate, clothed with a branching deciduous pubescence. 

 WESTERN PLATANUS. Button-wood. Plane-tree. 



(Stem 60 to 100 feet high, and 3 to 5 feet, or more, in diameter, with large spread- 

 ing branches, and a smoothish cinereous bark, which exfoliates in broad thinnish 

 plates. Leaves 4 to 6 or 8 inches in length, and rather wider than long, the base 

 at first truncate, finally subcordate ; peiioUs 1 to 3 intb.es in length ; stipules some- 

 what salverform, sheathing the young branches immediately above the petioles,- 

 the border foliaceous, coarsely and unequally toothed. Staminate heads small, on 

 peduncles 1 to 2 inches long. Pistillate heads about an inch in diameter, on 

 peduncles 3 to 5 inches long. Nuts about % of an inch in length, slender, sub- 

 terete, clavate. mucronate, the base acute. 

 Hob. Banks of streams, and roadsides : frequent. Fl. April. Fr. October. 



Obs. This stately tree originating from a very small seed often 

 attains to a larger size than any other, east of the Rocky Mountains. 

 For a number years past, it has been affected with some disease, 

 which has materially impaired its luxuriant growth, the nature, 

 or cause of which affection, seems not to be well ascertained. 



ORDER XCVII. URTICA^CEAE. 



Trees and shrubs with a milky juice, or herbs with a watery juice ; leaves alternate, 

 or opposite, often stipulate; flowers monoicous, dioicous, or polygamous, furnished 

 with a regular calyx, sometimes arranged in ament-like spikes, or fleshy heads; 

 gfamens as many as the calyx-lobes, and opposite them ; ovary free from the calyx, 

 mostly 1-celled, with a solitary ovule ; fruit an akene, or utricle, often inclosed in 

 the fleshy calyx, and clustered so as to form a compound berry, or all contained 

 in the cavity of the general receptacle ; embryo curved, or straight, with, or with- 

 out albumen. 



This is a comprehensive and important, though rather heterogeneous, order, 

 comprising 4 subdivisions, which ENDUCHER has erected into as many distinct 



