112 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 



able ground, and where it can, without inconvenience to its 

 fellows, have ample room for its fall developement. Then 

 soaring up, and extending its wide-spread branches on 

 every side, it is certainly a very majestic tree. The colour 

 of the foliage is of a paler green than is usual in forest trees ; 

 and although of large size, is easily wafted to and fro by 

 the wind, thereby producing an agreeable diversity of light, 

 pleasing to the eye in summer. In winter, the branches are 

 beautifully hung, even to their farthest ends, with the nu- 

 merous round russet-balls, or seed-vessels, each suspended 

 by a slender cord, and swinging about in the air. The out- 

 line of the head is pleasingly irregular, and its foliage against 

 a sky outline, is bold and picturesque. It is not a tree to be 

 planted in thick groves by itself, but to stand alone and de- 

 tached, or in a group with two or three. In avenues it is often 

 happily employed, and produces a grand effect. It also grows 

 with great vigour in close cities, as some superb specimens 

 in the square of the State-house, and other places in Philadel- 

 phia, fully attest. 



There is but a trifling difference in general effect between 

 our plane or buttonwood, and the Oriental plane. For the 

 purposes of shade and shelter, the American is the finest, as 

 its foliage is the longest and broadest. The Oriental plane, 

 (Platatius orientalis,) has the leaves lobed like our native 

 kind, (P. occidentalis.) but the segments are much more 

 deeply cut ; the footstalks of its leaves are green, while those 

 of the American are of a reddish hue, and the fruit or ball is 

 much smaller and rougher on the outer surface when fully 

 grown. Both species are common in the nurseries, and are 

 worthy the attention of the planter : the Oriental, as well for 

 the interesting associations connected with it, being the fa- 

 vourite shade-tree of the east, etc., as for its intrinsic merits 

 as a lofty and majestic tree. 



