94 TREES 



fairly shouted at us from a distance, whenever one of these 

 trees comes within the range of our vision. The smooth 

 bark that covers the branches is thin, very brittle, and has 

 the habit of flaking off in irregular plates, leaving white 

 patches under these plates that contrast sharply with the 

 dingy olive of the unshed areas. On old trunks the bark is 

 reddish brown and breaks into small, irregular plates; but 

 above, and out among the branches, the tree looks doT\Ti- 

 right untidy, and as though it had been splashed with 

 whitewash by some careless painter. (See illustrations, 

 pages 102-103.) 



White birches grow in copses in low ground, a whole 

 regiment of their white stems slanting upward. But the 

 ghostly sycamore is apt to stand alone along the river- 

 courses, scattered among other water-loving trees. The 

 tree is wayward in its branching habit, its twigs irregular 

 and angular. When the leaves are gone, it is a distressed- 

 looking object, dangling its seed-balls in the wind until the 

 central, bony cob is bare, the seeds having all sailed away 

 on their hairy parachutes. 



In the warmer South our buttonwood is a stalwart, 

 large-limbed tree of colossal trunk, that shelters oaks and 

 maples under its protecting arms. And there are some 

 large specimens on Long Island. 



The buttonwood leaf in a general way resembles a maple's, 

 being as broad as long, with three main lobes at the top. 

 The leaf stem forms a tent over the bud formed in summer 

 and containing the leafy shoot of the next year. The leaf 

 scar, therefore, is a circle and the leaf base a hollow 

 cone. At first a sheathing stipule, like a little leafy 

 ruffle, grows at the base of each leaf, but this is shed 

 before midsummer. 



