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native haunts with its towering trunk rising from an 

 immense base. One tree on an island in the Ohio 

 measured forty feet in circumference at five feet from 

 the ground, and one of seven famous trees is said to 

 have measured one hundred and fifty feet ; but this 

 may have been around the much extended base of the 

 tree. 



This tree is often wrongly called sycamore, the name 

 of a species of fig (Ficus sycomorus), the wood of 

 which was used by the ancient Egyptians for mummy 

 cases. A very interesting article on the misuse of the 

 name, together with illustrations of the buttonwood, 

 will be found at page 349 of the second volume of 

 "Garden and Forest." There is more reason, however, 

 for calling our buttonwood plane-tree, for it belongs to 

 the same genus as the European plane tree (Platanus 

 orientalis), specimens of which are growing in the 

 neighborhood of Boston. This tree closely resembles 

 our buttonwood. 



July twenty-first. 



