THE WESTERN PLANE. 373 
The beauty of the leaf of Platanus occidentalis 
consists in its golden green colour, its expansive 
surface, and its symmetrically cut form. It bears 
a sort of general resemblance as to form to the 
Sycamore leaf, is somewhat similarly lobed, and 
somewhat similarly veined. But its outline is much 
more angular, its indentations are not so deep, it 
is lighter, and more graceful in appearance, and 
instead of being dark-hued it is singularly bright 
with its rich glow of golden green. 
Its very small flowers are borne on globular 
catkins, and are of a greenish hue. The seeds, 
like the flowers, are crowded around a central 
point, forming a ball, are individually somewhat 
club-shaped, brownish in colour, and furnished at 
their smaller ends with bristly down, soft and 
light, and serving the purpose of wings to bear 
them away when the fit season has arrived. 
These balls of seed form a conspicuous feature of 
the Plane during the winter, for they remain on 
the twigs long after the foliage has disappeared, 
and indeed until the ensuing spring. 
An interesting and noticeable peculiarity of the 
Western Plane is the periodical pealing off, in 
