CHAPTER XXIII 

 THE SUNDERLAND BUTTONWOOD 



It is a sense of kingly isolation, 



Of rough beauty and enchanting grace, 



Proclaiming from the earliest creation 

 The power and pride of race. 



Tracy Robinson 



SUNDERLAND possesses a gigantic 

 "Old Buttonwood" (in place of the 

 conventional "old elm" of many New 

 England towns), the largest described in 

 the present collection, and the largest, doubt- 

 less, in Massachusetts. While surpassed in 

 size by a few elms, this old tree holds an envi- 

 able position, and justly so, for in point of 

 size the species stands preeminent among the 

 trees of the New England forest. 



The great limbs, stretching upward for 

 a hundred feet, more or less basket-shaped, 

 and spreading to an equal distance, are 

 plainly visible from Sugar Loaf Mountain, 

 and from several points along the highway 

 leading north. Their characteristic color 



