DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 
137 
extreme vigor and luxuriance of growth. In a good soil it 
will readily 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 considerable 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 every side, it is 
certainly a very majestic tree. The color 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 furthest ends, with the 
numerous round russet- balls, or seed-vessels, each sus- 
pended by a slender cord, and swinging about in the air. 
The outline 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 detached, or in a group with two or 
three. In avenues it is often happily employed, and 
produces a grand effect. It also grows with great vigor 
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 
