374 OUR WOODLAND TREES. 
long strips, of its bark, an operation which has 
the great advantage of relieving the Tree of the 
pressure of fungi, mosses, and any other dele- 
terious matters which may have collected on its 
trunk. The colour of the bark is a greyish white, 
and it retains this normal hue by the continual 
process of renewal. Another peculiarity consists 
in the curious and beautiful arrangement under 
which the new leaf-buds are produced. Instead 
of appearing, as is usually the case in our Trees, 
in the angles formed by the leaves and the stems 
on which the leaves are borne, they are enclosed 
in hollow cases provided at the feet of the leaf- 
stalks. It is, in fact, the bases of the leaf-stalks 
which furnish these cases: thus serving the 
double and beautiful purpose of supporting their 
own green expansions of cellular tissue, and of 
covering from injury, from sudden heat, or sudden 
cold, from smoke and dust, and dry, hot air, the 
tender buds of the succeeding year. Yet, though 
the Plane is a deciduous Tree, and the time must 
come when the protecting hollow of the leaf-stalk 
must fall with the fall of the leaf, it will be found 
that Nature has not been unmindful; for during 
