THE OCCIDENTAL PLANE. 



217 



and in the spring of 1810 a large number perished. 

 The severe winter of 1813 destroyed a number 

 of those which survived the frost of 1810, so 

 that full-grown trees are now comparatively rare 

 throughout Britain. Lofty trees may still be 

 seen here and there with some of their branches 

 dead or shivered by the tempest, the surviving 

 boughs bearing scarcely enough leaves to enable 

 us to distinguish the species, and affording a me- 

 lancholy contrast to their ancient crown of foliage. 

 Many persons suppose that this ruin is the effect 

 of lightning, and have gone so far as to imagine 

 that the Plane possesses some particular attraction 

 for the electric fluid; but there can be little 

 doubt that all these trees are among the sufferers 

 from unseasonable frosts, that they have dwindled 

 away under the effect of repeated shocks, and 

 given up their dead and decaying boughs one 

 by one to the violence of tempestuous winds. 

 It does not appear that in its native country. 

 North America, the Plane is injured by frost, 

 although it is there exposed for a long period in 

 every year to an intensity of cold unknown in 

 Britain : hence it would appear that as long as 

 the buds, the vitals of the tree, are protected by 

 their many mantles, they defy the frost ; but 

 that if cold weather should return after the 

 leaves have begun to expand, they become frost- 

 bitten and perish. 



In the swampy forests of America, it flourishes 

 in unimpaired magnificence, and surpasses in size 

 and height every tree with which it is associated. 

 It often sends up a massive trunk seventy or 

 eighty feet before it begins to branch, and then 

 sends out huge arms, any one of which exceeds in 



