PLANES, CATALPAS 93 



tinent, and in America, Planes lie under the 

 suspicion of giving off, from their expanding 

 leaves in the spring, clouds of fine down which 

 irritate sensitive throats. 



The seed-balls can be seen hanging from the 

 bare branches all through the winter like 

 marbles or round buttons at the end of a 

 string. They give to the American Plane the 

 name of Buttonwood. These buttons serve as 

 labels for Plane trees when all the leaves have 

 fallen. 



There is a fine Oriental Plane at Kew, and 

 also one at Holland House, and at St. Ann's 

 Hill, both of them probably planted by Charles 

 James Fox, who was a classical scholar. 



An old Ilex an Evergreen Oak remains 

 unhurt in the south-east corner not so large, 

 nor so venerable, as the Ilex Pliny said existed in 

 his time in Rome, with a bronze Etruscan label 

 on it. Not even so large as the fine Ilex at the 

 station entrance to Kew, but a tree the Garden 

 may well be proud of. The Ilex aims its long 

 root straight at the centre of the earth, and 

 becomes independent of superficial changes in 

 moisture. 



There is a Japanese Catalpa which must 

 have existed at the time of the Embankment one 

 of the finest of its kind in London. 1 Catalpas 

 are hardy trees. They can endure the smoke of 

 London, and their large, pale, heart-shaped 

 leaves and white blossoms might be more 

 often seen in London parks. Their timber, too, 



1 " Catalpa Kcempferi thrives well in London : one of the 

 oldest and largest being in the Chelsea Physic Garden." 

 London Trees, by A. Webster, p. 38. 



