The Gum Tree. 



for doing every thing else, until the trees be put out into 

 plantations, I have only to add here, that if seed be pro- 

 cured either at home or abroad, care should be taken 

 that the eones be ripe before they be gathered ; for, if 

 they be not ripe, they will not open when laid in the sun, 

 and if they were to open the seed would not grow. When 

 the seed is once got out, the sooner it is sowed the better; 

 but, as was before observed, if you cannot sow the seed the 

 spring after you have collected the cones, the best way is 

 to keep the cones unopened until the next year. 



THE aXTTil THEE. 



In Latin, Liquidamber Styraciflua ; in French, Copalm. 



2f>5. The Botanical characters are : — It has male and female flowers some- 

 times on the same plant, and at other times upon different plants ; the male 

 flowers are numerous, disposed in long loose conical katkins; these have 

 four-leaved empalements, but no petals. They have a great number of short 

 stamina joined in one body, which are convex on one side, but plain on the 

 other, terminated by erect twin summits, with four furrows. The female 

 flowers are often situated at the base of the male-spike, collected in a globe ; 

 these have a double erapalement like that of the male, and each of them has 

 a bell-shaped, angular, distinct empalement, with many protuberances. They 

 have no petals, but an oblong germen fastened to the empalement, support- 

 ing two awl-shaped styles, to which is also iixed the recurved stigmas, which 

 are hairy, and as long as the styles. The empalement afterwards turns to 

 a roundish capsule of one cell, with two valves at the top, which are acute, 

 and collected in a ligneous globe, containing oblong acute-pointed seeds. 



266. The Gum-tree (sometimes called the Sweet Gum) 

 I do not recommend to be planted in England as a forest 

 tree, there are so many others which are, in all respects, 

 preferable to it; but it is so very beautiful a tree; the colour 

 of the leaf, both when green and when it dies; the shape 

 of the leaf, the form of the tree, are all so beautiful, and the 



