160 FAMILIAR TREES 



first rank, it presents a grand, unbroken mass of 

 foliage, contrasting well, in appropriate situations, and 

 when judiciously grouped, with trees of a lighter and 

 more airy character, and affording, as Gilpin expresses 

 it, 'an impenetrable shade.'" It must be admitted, 

 however, that the diversifying of the bark with lighter 

 patches here alluded to is not nearly so uniformly 

 characteristic of the Sycamore as of the Plane; so 

 that, though a type of sturdy self-reliance in its 

 massive form, the former species cannot, on the score 

 of colouring, be acquited of the charge of monotony. 



