216 



THE OCCIDENTAL PLANE. 



it. Carefully detach it, and it will be found to 

 be hollow, and to enclose a green bud, which 

 remains behind after the leaf has been removed. 

 The use of the hollow stem is to shelter the 

 young bud during the colds of autumn. But 

 when the leaf has fallen off, the bud is not left 

 without protection, for it is enveloped in a tough 

 case lined with a kind of resin, which is impene- 

 trable to wet ; within this is a similar case lined 

 externally with the same coating ; next come a 

 number of scales covered with a dense coat of 

 fur, which must serve as an admirable safeguard 

 against cold ; and within all lie the leaves, wrapped 

 up in a mantle of silk, waiting till the succeeding 

 spring shall give them new vigour and enable 

 them to burst all their envelopes. For some 

 time after their expansion, the leaves have their 

 under surfaces covered with a thick coat of down, 

 which circumstance has given to this Plane the 

 name of Cotton-tree. Nor is this complicated 

 protection against cold more than is requisite ; 

 for stout and lusty as the tree appears to be, it 

 would without it be unable to withstand the 

 insidious frosts of an English spring. In con- 

 firmation of this statement I may observe, that 

 at the beginning of the present century large 

 specimens of the Occidental Plane were not un- 

 common* In the January of 1809, however, there 

 was a great flood, occasioned by a sudden thaw ; 

 and in the March and April following there was 

 very mild weather, which tempted the Plane- 

 trees to put on their leaves earlier than usual. 

 This w^as succeeded by a severe frost in the begin- 

 ning of May, which so injured the trees that 

 they appeared sickly throughout all the summer ; 



