400 
DECIDUOUS TREES. 
thicker in texture, more deeply lobed, as shown on Fig. 125, and 
glossier than the leaves of the maple. 
This engraving is a portrait of a fine 
specimen about forty years old, growing 
in the grounds of T. S, Shepherd, Esq., 
at Orienta, near Mamaroneck, N. Y. It 
was transplanted to its present location 
from an adjoining field when the trunk 
was nearly twelve inches in diameter, 
and has become a luxuriant tree again. 
During the summer the tree may be 
easily mistaken for an unusually dark 
and glossy-leaved sugar maple, but is 
distinguished from it not only by the 
peculiarities of its leaves, already men¬ 
tioned, but by the curious appearance of its secondary branches to 
which the bark is attached in corky ridges as on the cork-barked 
elm, giving the branches a more rugged appearance. 
The tree is found from New Hampshire to the Isthmus of 
Darien; but it is only at the south that a characteristic which gives 
the tree its name is observed. A fragrant gum there exudes from 
its bark, which resembles liquidamber, and the tree was so named 
by the Spanish naturalist who first described it. 
Downing’s enthusiastic description of this tree is so good that 
we transcribe it for the reader. 
“We hardly know a more beautiful tree than the liquidamber 
in every stage of its growth, and during every season of the year. 
Its outline is not picturesque or graceful, but simply beautiful; 
* * * it is, therefore, a highly pleasing round-headed or taper¬ 
ing tree, which unites and harmonizes well with almost any other in 
composition ; but the chief beauty lies in the foliage. During the 
whole of the summer months it preserves unsoiled that dark glossy 
freshness which is so delightful to the eye; while the singular, 
regularly palmate form of the leaves readily distinguishes it from 
the common trees of a plantation. But in autumn it assumes its 
gayest livery, and is decked in colors almost too bright and vivid 
for foliage, forming one of the most brilliant objects in American 
Fig. 125. 
