BUTTONWOOD OR SYCAMORE. 
33 
Fig. 2, A seed of the natural size . Fig. 3, Barren dust which accompanies the 
seed. 
[The round prickly catkins which contain the seeds are hard, and not 
readily broken by the hand ; but by exposure to the sun, or to fire heat, 
they crack and open, and the seeds may then be easily shaken out. They 
may be sown and treated like seeds of the pine and fir tribe ; but unlike 
them, they lie a year in the ground before coming up.] 
BUTTONWOOD, OR SYCAMORE. 
Monoecia Monandria, Linn. Araentaceæ, Jess. 
Platanus occidentals. P. foliis lobato-angulosw, ramulis albentibus. 
Among trees with deciduous leaves, none in the temperate zones, either 
on the Old or the New Continent, equals the dimensions of the Planes. 
The species which grows in the Western world is not less remarkable for 
its amplitude and for its magnificent appearance than the Plane of Asia, 
whose majestic form and extraordinary size were so much celebrated by 
the ancients. 
In the Atlantic States, this tree is commonly known by the name of 
Buttonwood, and sometimes, in Virginia, by that of Water Beech. On 
the banks of the Ohio, and in the States of Kentucky and Tennessee, it is 
most frequently called Sycamore, and by some persons Plane 1 Tree. The 
French of Canada and of Upper Louisiana give it the name of Cotton 
Tree. The first of these denominations appears to be the most widely dif- 
fused, and not to be entirely unknown in those districts where the others 
are habitually employed ; for this reason I have adopted it, though a less 
appropriate appellation than that of Plane Tree. 
According to my own observations, the Buttonwood does not venture, 
towards the north-east, beyond Portland, in the latitude of 40° 30' ; but 
further west, in the 73° of longitude, it is found two degrees further north, 
at the extremity of Lake Champlain and at Montreal. I have not observed 
it myself, in this direction, beyond Onion river in Vermont, and I have 
never seen it in the district of Maine, nor in Nova Scotia. The trees of 
