PACIFIC PLANE OR SYCAMORE TREB. 117 



dingy yellowish green, and at length yellow, when the year 

 garners her gold with the joy of harvest. 



The cones are of the size and shape of a pigeon's egg, or 

 about one and a fourth inches long, and about one inch 

 broad, bent back on their short stems; scales of the cones 

 membranous, short, rather broad, egg-form, obtuse, often a 

 little scallop-notched on their edges ; bract leaves, imperfectly 

 elliptical, with fringed ends, the long awn or mid-ribs pro- 

 truding beyond. (See our sketch of it in the VI Vol. P. R. 

 R. R., page 59.) 



PACIFIC PLANE OR SYCAMORE TREE. 



(Platanus Racemosa.) 



" The heavy-headed Plane Tree, by whose shade 

 The grape grows thickest, men are fresher made." — B. 



— "Broad-leaved Plane Trees, 

 Where, round their trunks the thousand-tendril'd vine 



Wound up, and hung the boughs with greener wreaths, 

 And clusters not their own." — Southey. 



THE Plane Tree of the Pacific is a summer-green inhab- 

 itant of valleys, where the roots reach water, and the 

 soil, free from stagnant moisture, is never dry; with 

 some shelter, access to sun, equable and genial moist air, it 

 is a tree of great magnitude and wonderful majesty; the 

 huge branches spread greatly, and the twigs are divergent 

 and distant from one another, according to the size of the 

 leaves; hence, in Winter it is more open than most other 

 trees to the sun's rays. Pliny says: "There is no tree what- 

 soever that defends us so well from the heat of the sun in 

 Summer, or that admits it more kindly in Winter." Few 

 trees are so favorably formed and foliaged for ventilation; it 

 is, therefore, no wonder in the Orient they believe, as stated 

 by Evelyn, that, "after a raging pestilent in Ispahan, since 

 they planted a great number of these noble trees about it, 

 the plague has not come nigh their dwellings." Like similar 

 trees of large foliage, they often seem too naked, but how 

 else could they hang out free the pretty tassel-threads strung 

 with long, graceful, and beautiful catkined balls, that dance 

 so merrily all the live-long year, chiefiV cheering the winter 

 months? In early Spring the great magnanimous and trop- 

 ical leaves appear; these palm-like leaves are more deeply 

 lobed than the Eastern Atlantic Plane (P. occidentalis), being 

 half to a loot and a half across; but they find room enough 

 to expand, and a free Summer-field to flash their bright, 



