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LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 
pearing in spring, and the fertile ones grow to an inch in 
diameter, assuming a deep brownish colour, and hang upon 
the tree during the whole winter. A striking and peculiar 
characteristic of the plane, is its property of throwing off or 
shedding continually the other coating of bark here and there 
in patches. Professor Lindley ( Introduction to the Natural 
System, 2d ed. 187,) says this is owing to its deficiency in the 
expansive power of the fibre common to the bark of other 
trees, or, in other words, to the rigidity of its tissue : being 
therefore incapable of stretching with the growth of the tree, 
it bursts open on different parts of the trunk, and is cast off. 
This gives the trunk quite a lively and picturesque look, 
extending more or less even to the extremity of the branches, 
and makes this tree quite conspicuous in winter. Bryant, 
in his address to Green River says : 
“ Clear are the depths where its eddies play, 
And dimples deepen and whirl away, 
And the plane tree’s speckled arms o’ershoot 
The swifter current that mines its root.” 
The great merit of the plane or buttonwood, is its extreme 
vigour and luxuriance of growth. In a good soil, it will rea- 
dily reach a height of thirty-five or forty feet in ten years. It 
is easily transplanted ; and in new residences, bare of trees, 
where an effect is desired speedily, we know of nothing better 
adapted quickly to produce abundance of foliage, shelter, and 
shade. When the requisite foliage is obtained, and other 
trees of slower growth have reached a proper size, the former 
may be thinned out. As the plane tree grows to the largest 
size, it is only proper for situations where there is consider- 
able ground, and where it can, without inconvenience to its 
fellows, have ample room for its full development. Then 
soaring up, and extending its wide-spread branches on 
