THE OCCIDENTAL PLANE. 291 



it be unable to withstand the insidious frosts of an 

 English spring. In confirmation of this statement I may 

 observe, that at the beginning of the present century large 

 specimens of the Occidental Plane were not uncommon. 

 In the January of 1809, however, there was a great flood, 

 occasioned by a sudden thaw ; and in the March and 

 April following there was very mild weather, which 

 tempted the Plane-trees to put on their leaves earlier than 

 usual. This Avas succeeded by a severe frost in the begin- 

 ning of ]May, which so injured the trees that they appeared 

 sickly throughout all the summer ; and in the spring of 

 1810 a large number perished. The severe winter of 1813 

 destroyed a number of those which survived the frost of 

 1810; so that full-grown trees are now comparatively rare 

 throughout Britain. Lofty trees may still be seen here 

 and there with some of their branches dead or shivered 

 by the tempest, the surviving boughs bearing scarcely 

 enough leaves to enable us to distinguish the species, and 

 affording a melancholy contrast to their ancient crown of 

 foliage. Many persons suppose that this ruin is the effect 

 of lightning, and have gone so far as to imagine that the 

 Plane possesses some particular attraction for the electric 

 fluid ; but there can be little doubt that all these trees are 

 among the sufferers from unseasonable frosts, that they 

 have dwindled away under the effect of repeated shocks, 

 and given up their dead and decaying boughs one by one 

 to the violence of tempestuous winds. It does not appear 

 that in its native country, iS^orth America, the Plane is 

 injured by frost, although it is there exposed for a long 

 period in every year to an intensity of cold unknown in 

 Britain : hence it would appear that as long as the buds, 

 the vitals of the tree, are protected by their many mantles, 

 they defy the frost; but that if cold weather should 

 return after the leaves have begun to expand, they become 

 frost-bitten, and perish. 



In the swampy forests of America it flourishes in 

 unimpaired magnificence, and surpasses in size and height 

 2 



