34 
BUTTONWOOD OR SYCAMORE. 
this species which exist at Halifax, have been planted for ornament, and, 
though they are 40 feet in height, they do not display the same vigor as in 
a more southern latitude, where the winter is less rigorous. Proceeding 
from Boston and the shores of Lake Champlain towards the west and the 
south-west, the Buttonwood is continually met with over a vast tract, xcorn- 
prising the Atlantic and Western States, and extending beyond the Mis- 
sissippi. 
The nature of the Buttonwood confines it to moist and cool grounds, 
where the soil is loose, deep and fertile : the luxuriance of its vegetation 
depends upon the union of these circumstances. It is never found upon 
dry lands of an irregular surface among the White and Red Oaks and the 
Walnuts: it is also more rare in all the mountainous tract of the Allegha- 
nies than in the flat country. It is remarked, in that part of Virginia which 
lies upon the road from Baltimore to Petersburg, that, though the Button- 
wood is multiplied in the swamps, its growth is stinted, and that it does 
not in general exceed 8 or 10 inches in diameter. Further south, in the 
lower parts of the Carolinas and of Georgia, it is not abundant even on the 
sides of the rivers, and is not seen in the branch-swamps already mentioned, 
which intersect the pine-barrens , and which are principally covered with 
the Small Magnolia, the Red Bay, the Loblolly Bay, the Red Maple, etc. 
The cause of the Buttonwood not being found in these small marshes is, 
perhaps, that the layer of vegetable mould, which is black and always 
miry, is not sufficiently thick and substantial to- support its growth, and 
that the heat, in this part of the Southern States, is long continued and 
excessive. The Buttonwood is in no part of North America more abun- 
dant and more vigorous than along the great rivers of Pennsylvania and of 
Virginia; though, in the more fertile valleys of the West, its vegetation is 
perhaps still more luxuriant, especially on the banks of the Ohio and of the 
rivers which empty into it, viz. the Great Muskingum, the Great Kenhawa, 
the Great Sciota, the Kentucky, the Wabash, etc. The bottoms which are 
watered by these rivers are covered with dark forests, composed of trees of 
an extraordinary size. The soil is very deep, loose, of a brown color, and 
unctuous to the touch : it appears to have been formed by the slime depos- 
ited in the course of ages, at the annual overflowing of the rivers. Thq 
leaves, v^uch every autumn form a thick layer upon the surface, and the 
old trees that fall by the weight of years and crumble into vegetable mould, 
give to this soil, already so fertile, a degree of fecundity which is without 
example in Europe, and which is manifested by prodigies of vegetation. 
The margin of the great rivers of the West is occupied by the Willow, 
after which comes the White Maple, and next the Buttonwood : but this 
arrangement is not uniformly observed, and the Maple alone, or, as it more 
frequently happens, mingled with the Buttonwood, sometimes grows upon 
the brink. Among the trees which compose these forests, these three spe- 
