BUTTERWORT. 



BUTTONWOOD. 



butternut was considered an admirable sub- 

 stitute for jalap. At present it is but little 

 resorted to except in domestic practice in the 

 country, where many of the farmer's wives 

 make a preparation in the spring for the use 

 of themselves and their neighbours. They 

 usually boil the bark entire in water, till the 

 liquid is reduced, by evaporation, to a thick, 

 viscid substance, which is almost black. 

 This is a faulty process ; the exterior bark 

 should first be removed, for by continuing the 

 boiling, it soaks up nearly four-fifths of the 

 liquid, already charged with rich extractive 

 matter. In the country the bark is sometimes 

 employed for dyeing wool of a dark-brown 

 colour; but the bark of the black walnut is 

 preferable for this purpose. 



If the trunk of the butternut is pierced in 

 the month which precedes the unfolding of the 

 leaves, a pretty copious discharge ensues of a 

 slightly sugary sap, from which, by evapora- 

 tion, sugar is obtained of a quality inferior to 

 that of the sugar maple. (Michaux's American 

 Sylva.) 



BUTTERWORT (Pinguicula vulgaris). A 

 perennial weed growing in moist soils, as bogs 

 and wet heaths. The viscid exudation of the 

 leaves, which are thick and glutinous, says 

 Smith (Eng. Flor. vol. i. p. 29), is reputed to 

 be good for the sore teats of cows, whence the 

 Yorkshire name of this plant, sanicle. The 

 country people make it into a syrup as a pur- 

 gative, and boil it with their garden herbs in 

 broth as a remedy in colds. An ointment 

 made from butterwort is also used for chapped 

 hands, and to rub upon animals when bitten 

 by an adder or slow-worm. 



Mr. Nuttall enumerates four species of this 

 plant found in the United States, all of which, 

 he says, grow nearly on a level with the ocean, 

 in moist pine-barrens. (Genera of North Am. 

 Plants.} 



BUTTONWOOD, or SYCAMORE, the Pla- 

 tanus ocddentalis, or western plane tree, of na- 

 turalists. 



Among trees with deciduous leaves, none 

 in the temperate zones, either on the old or 

 new continent, equals the dimensions of the 

 planes. The species which grows in the West 

 ern World is not less remarkable for its am 

 plitude and for its magnificent appearance than 

 the plane of Asia, whose majestic form and 

 extraordinary size was so much celebrated by 

 the ancients. 



In the Atlantic States this tree is commonly 

 known by the name of buttonwood, and some 

 times, in Virginia, by that of water-beech. 

 , On the banks of the Ohio, and in the states of 

 Kentucky and Tennessee, it is most frequently 

 called sycamore, and by some persons plane- 

 tree. The French of Canada and of Upper 

 Louisiana give it the name of cotton tree. 



The buttonwood is abundant and very vigor- 

 ous along the great rivers of Pennsylvania and 

 of Virginia; though in the more fertile val- 

 leys of the West, its vegetation is perhaps still 

 luxuriant, especially on the banks of the 

 io and rivers emptying into it. The bottoms 

 watered^y these rivers are covered with dark 

 I'nrests, composed of trees of extraordinary 

 The soil is very deep, loose, of a brown 

 344 



colour, and unctuous to the touch, formed ap- 

 parently of the slime deposited in the course 

 of ages by the annual overflowing of the rivers. 

 The fertility derived from this source is in- 

 creased by accumulations of decayed vegetable 

 matter furnished by leaves and the trees them- 

 selves. A degree of fertility is thus attained 

 by the vegetable mould without example in 

 Europe, and which is manifested \by prodigies 

 of vegetation. In such situations the button- 

 wood is found to be the largest tree in the 

 United States, although in point of loftiness it 

 is exceeded by the tulip poplar, and still more 

 the white pine. Often, with a trunk of several 

 feet in diameter, the plane tree begins to branch 

 out at the height of sixty or seventy feet, near 

 the summits of surrounding trees; and often 

 the base divides itself into several trunks 

 equally vigorous and superior in diameter to 

 all other trees in the vicinity. "On a little 

 island in the Ohio, fifteen miles above the 

 mouth of the Muskingum, my father," says 

 Michaux, " measured a buttonwood which, at 

 five feet from the ground, was forty feet and 

 four inches in circumference, and consequently 

 more than thirteen feet in diameter. Twenty 

 years before, General Washington had mea- 

 sured the same tree, and found it to be of 

 nearly the same size." The same distinguished 

 naturalist mentions another tree which he and 

 his travelling companion had measured, and 

 found, at the height of four feet above the 

 ground, forty-seven feet in circumference 

 This tree, which grew on the right bank of the 

 Ohio, about thirty-six miles from Marietta, still 

 exhibited the appearance of vigorous vegeta- 

 tion, and began to shoot out its limbs twenty- 

 feet above the ground. A buttonwood of equal 

 size is mentioned, as existing in Tennessee. 

 "The extraordinary dimensions of these trees 

 recalls," says Michaux, "the famous plane 

 tree of Lycia, spoken of by Pliny, the trunk 

 of which, hollowed by time, afforded a retreat 

 for the night to the Roman Consul Licinius 

 Mutianus, with eighteen of his followers. The 

 interior of this grotto was represented to be 

 seventy feet in circumference, and the summit 

 of the tree resembled a small forest." 



The most striking resemblance, in the ma- 

 jesty of their form and in the enormous size 

 of their trunk, thus appears to exist between 

 the only two species of plane that have been 

 discovered. It is difficult to mark any differ- 

 ence in the colour and organization of their 

 wood. The American species is generally 

 thought, in Europe, to possess a richer foliage 

 and to afford a deeper shade than the Asiatic 

 plane. Its leaves are of a beautiful green, 

 alternate, from five to ten inches broad, less 

 deeply lobed, and formed with more open an- 

 gles than those of the plane of the Eastern 

 continent. In some places where this tree is 

 very abundant, it has been a source of alarm 

 to the neighbouring inhabitants, who believe 

 that the fine down from the leaves, floating in 

 the air, produces an irritation of the lungs and 

 predisposes to consumption. There appears 

 to be little if any foundation for such an ap- 

 prehension. 



According to Michaux's observations, the 

 buttonwood does not venture towards the north- 



