HOW TO KNO\XA THE TREES 

 GROWING IN BRITAIN 



With Notes, descriptive and photographic, for their Identification 

 in all Seasons of the Year 



By HENRY IRVING 



THE PLANE 



ABUNDANT as the Plane tree now is 

 X\. with us, it is of comparatively 

 recent introduction. It has never 

 lost its foreign, almost Oriental, air. 

 We can scarcely be too 

 grateful for the bounteous 

 brightening greenery it 

 uplifts in the ways and 

 squares of our cities, where 

 it holds its own in spite 

 of vitiated air and clog- 

 ging impurities. It lives, 

 and fairly thrives, and little 

 abates its sunshiny sug- 

 gestiveness, its Orient ful- 

 ness, splashing here and 

 there golden gleams over 

 drab streets ; in stifling 

 August heat casting cooler 

 shade that by contrast is 

 refreshing. Yet +he tree 

 is un - English, with its 

 speckled trunk and limbs, 

 its ^road geometrical 

 leaves, i*s :arious dangling 

 flowers and fruits, its bil- 

 lowy massed crown. It 

 is witl- as pre-eminently 

 the city tree — city and 

 sulnirban — and by it city 

 and suburb are so far re- 

 deemed ; but it seems 

 rather out of place in our 

 country-side, and strikes 

 an alien note in our 

 English landscape. 



In winter the appearance 

 of the tree is distinct and 

 characteristic. Its central 

 stem rises often to the 

 summit, but from it are 



thrust out large elbowed branches of 

 varied lengths, which follow no very 

 defined plan, so that the tree's form is 

 decidedly lacking in S3'mmetry. The 



tiil; j'lank in winter riMii. 



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