36 HOUGH'S AMERICAN WOODS. 



ORDER PLAT ANACEJE : PLANE-TREE FAMILY. 



Learns simple, alternate, palmately-veined and lobed, with sheathing scarious 

 stipules. Flowers monoecious, destitute of both calyx and corolla, in separate and 

 globular heads. Sterile flowers numerous ; stamens intermixed with small, club- 

 shaped scales ; filaments very short; anthers 2-celled, linear. Fertile flowers : pistils 

 intermixed with little scales ; ovaries inversely pyramidal; style simple, awl-shaped, 

 stigmatic on one side. Fruit small, club-shaped, coriaceous nutlets, with bristly 

 tawny down at base, arranged in globose heads and containing a single, pendulous, 

 albuminous seed. 



Represented by trees. 



GENUS PLATANUS, L. 



Characters as given for the order, this being the only genus. 



(The name Platanus is from the Greek, TtharvS, broad, probably in reference to 

 the leaves.) 



135. PLATANUS RACEMOSA, NUTT. 

 CALIFORNIA SYCAMORE. 



G-er., Calif or nianische Platane ; Fr., Platane de Calif or nie ; Sp., Pla- 



tano de California. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS : Leaves quite variable in shape , broad heart-shaped 

 rounded, truncate or even cuneate at base, with blade decurrent upon the petiole, 

 mostly 5-lobed (sometimes 3-lobed) the sinuses acute or rounded and extending quite 

 to the middle of the leaf, lobes acute or acuminate, entire or denticulate, mucronately 

 toothed or sometimes sinuate-toothed, densely covered at first with a pale or rusty 

 fugacious tomentum, often 1 ft. or more across, petiole 1-2 in. long ; stipules sheathing 

 the branchlet, deciduous, membranous, with dilated foliaceous entire or toothed limb, 

 cleft next to the petiole. Fruit nutlets scarcely \ in. in length, tomentose when 

 young but finally nearly glabrous, beak slender, about -| in. long, margined with 

 tawny hairs, in globose heads about 1 in. in diameter and 2-7 together in amoniliform 

 spike. 



The California Sycamore is very much like its eastern congener in 

 habit growth. It sometimes attains the height of 100 ft. (30 m.) with a 

 trunk 4-5 ft. in diameter (1.20 mO (exceptionally much larger as with one 

 mentioned in the Botany of California as growing in Los Angeles Co., 

 and having a girth of 29 ft. 7 in.) with light-gray bark exfoliating in 

 large irregular scales and plates, and bark of branches sometimes nearly 

 white. When growing by itself the trunk is short, dividing into massive 

 sprawling branches and developing a large irregular top. 



HABITAT. The river valleys of California, particularly of the interior 

 region and conspicuously the Sacramento valley; thence southward into 

 the southern part of the state, growing in rich moist soil along the 

 borders of streams. 



PHYSICAL PROPERTIES. Wood rather light and soft, brittle, com- 

 pact and very difficult to split, with conspicuous medullary rays and fine 

 grain; of a light reddish-brown color shaded into a buff- white sap-wood. 

 Specific Gravity, 0.4880 ; Percentage of Ash, 1.11 ; Relative, Approximate 

 Fuel Value, 0.4826; Coefficient of Elasticity, 62401; Modulus of Rupture, 



