24> Expedition to the 



on the bank of the Ohio, between Cincinnati and the rapids 

 at Louisville, was fourteen feet in diameter. One which 

 stood, some years since, near the village of Marietta; was 

 found, by M. Michaux, to measure 15. 7-10ft. in diameter, at 

 twenty feet from the ground.* They often rise to an eleva- 

 tion of one hundred and fifty feet. The branches are very 

 large and numerous, forming a spreading top, densely cov- 

 ered with foliage. Many of those trees, which attain the 

 greatest size, are decayed in the interor of the trunk, long 

 after the annual increase continues to be added at the exte- 

 rior circumference. The growth of the American plane tree 

 does not appear to be very rapid. It was remarked by Hum- 

 boldt, that in the hot and damp lands of North America, 

 between the Mississippi and the Alleghany mountains, the 

 growth of trees is about one fifth more rapid than in Eu- 

 rope, taking for examples the platanus occidentalis, the lirio- 

 dendron tulipifera, and the cupressus disticha, all of which 

 reach from nine to fifteen feet in diameter. It is his opinion 

 that the growth in these trees does not exceed a foot in di- 

 ameter in ten years. f As far as our observation has enabled 

 us to judge, this estimate rather exceeds than falls short of 

 the truth. This growth is greatly exceeded in rapidity by 

 the baobab, and other trees in the tropical parts of America ; 

 a^o by the gigantic adansonia of the eastern continent,^; 

 and equalled, perhaps, by several trees in our own climate, 

 whose duration is less extended than that of those above 

 mentioned. § 



The sycamore, or occidental plane tree has been cultivated 

 for more than one hundred and eighty years in England, yet 



* Voy. a 1' ouest des monts Alleghany, 1.804. P. 93. 



f Pers Nar. Vol. I. P. 357. Philadelphia Edition. 



\ Salt's Abyssiuia, P. 49. Amer. Edit. 



§ The cotton-wood tree is of very rapid growth. It has beenascerta jn- 

 ed that one individual, in the term of twenty-one years, attained the height 

 of one hundred and eight feet and nine inches, and the diameter of twenty 

 and an half inches, exclusive of the bark. Barton's Supp. Med. and 

 Phys. Tours P. 71. 



