DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 
139 
every side, it is certainly a very majestic tree. The colour 
of the foliage is of a paler green than is usual in forest trees ; 
and although of large size, is easily wafted to and fro by 
the wind, thereby producing an agreeable diversity of light, 
pleasing to the eye in summer. In winter, the branches are 
beautifully hung, even to their farthest ends, with the nu- 
merous round russet-balls, or seed-vessels, each suspended 
by a slender cord, and swinging about in the air. The out- 
line of the head is pleasingly irregular, and its foliage against 
a sky outline, is bold and picturesque. It is not a tree to be 
planted in thick groves by itself, but to stand alone and de- 
tached, or in a group withtwo or three. In avenues it is often 
happily employed, and produces a grand effect. It also grows 
with great vigour in close cities, as some superb^specimens 
in the square of the State-house, Pennsylvania Hospital, and 
other places in Philadelphia, fully attest. 
There is but a trifling difference in general effect between 
our plane or buttonwood, and the Oriental plane. For the 
purposes of shade and shelter, the American is the finest, as 
its foliage is the longest and broadest. The Oriental plane, 
( Platanus orientalist has the leaves lobed like our native 
kind, (P. occidentalism but the segments are much more 
deeply cut ; the footstalks of its leaves are green, while those 
of the American are of a reddish hue, and the fruit or ball is 
much smaller and rougher on the outer surface when fully 
grown. Both species are common in the nurseries, and are 
worthy the attention of the planter ; the Oriental, as well for 
the interesting associations connected with it, being the 
favourite shade-tree of the east, etc., as for its intrinsic 
merits as a lofty and majestic tree. 
Two of the varieties of P. occidentalis are sometimes culti- 
