CHAPTER XIII. 



I. Simple Alternate Leaves. 



2. With teeth. B. Edge divided. 



BUTTONWOOD AND LIQUID AMBER. 



The buttonwood, which is also com- 

 Buttonwood or 



Sycamore, monly but quite improperly called 

 Piatanus svcamore, is a tall, ruggedly hand- 



occidentaUs. . 



some tree, which sometimes attains a 

 height of 150 feet. Gray calls it our largest tree, 

 and Whittier has made it celebrated in his poem 

 entitled The Sycamores. The Occidental plane trees 

 — Hugh Tallant's sycamores, sung by the poet — 

 were planted by the Irish pioneer in 1738, over a 

 century and a half ago, beside the Merrimac River, 

 where now stands the city of Haverhill, Mass.* Be- 

 neath their shade, tradition says, Washington passed 

 in his triumphal journey through the North in 1789, 



* Only two or three of these trees now remain standing ; they 

 measure about six feet in trunk circumference. Formerly a long 

 row of them adorned what is known as the Saltonstall estate. 



172 



