34 TREES AS GOOD CITIZENS 



The bark on the trunk resembles that of the Ash, and is 

 light brownish-grey, with narrow, shallow furrows. The 

 young twigs are a light olive green. 



The Sycamore is a large, handsome American tree. 

 Its European relatives are called plane trees. The name 

 Sycamore is used in Europe for the Sycamore Maple or 

 False Plane Tree, while in the Orient and among the 

 ancients it was a kind of Fig. The Sycamore is also called 

 Buttonwood, Buttonball or Button Ball tree, Plane tree 

 and American Plane. It has large maple-shaped leaves 

 but has balls instead of keys as the seed vessel; the leaves 

 of the Sycamore are not borne opposite one another, being 

 thus in contrast to the habit of the Maple. Furthermore 

 its bark peels off in thin, brittle layers, a characteristic 

 lacking in the Maples except to a very small extent in the 

 Sycamore Maple. The peeling process leaves almost white 

 patches on the dull, ruddy brown bark, giving a character- 

 istic mottled effect which can be recognized at a long 

 distance. This appearance is not even suggested in the 

 Sycamore Maple. Another characteristic peculiar to this 

 tree is that the base of the leafstalk makes a cap-like cover- 

 ing over the young buds and the bud is not seen in the axil 

 of the leaf as in nearly all other trees. The leaves are light 

 green, five-lobed, and with a few coarse teeth. The fruit is 

 in the form of a single ball, rarely two, known as the but- 

 tonball, which changes from green to light brown in the au- 

 tumn and hangs throughout the winter. The London 

 Plane, often cultivated as the Oriental Plane a sister tree 

 to the Sycamore sheds its bark as does the Sycamore but 

 leaves pale greenish patches beneath, instead of almost 

 white ones. Instead of the single ball the fruit of this 

 tree is generally borne in clusters of from two to four. 



In the American Elm, the trunk divides gradually a 

 short distance from the ground into two or more stout 



