_Elm._――The _White Elm_ inhabits an extensive tract of the states, being found from Nova Scotia to the extremity of Georgia. It is also found on the banks of the western rivers; growing in low, moist and substantial soils. In the middle states, this tree stretches to a great height, but does not approach the magnificence of vegetation which it displays in the countries peculiarly adapted to its growth. In clearing the primitive forests, a few stocks are sometimes left standing; insulated in this manner, it appears in all its majesty, towering to the height of eighty or one hundred feet, with a trunk four or five feet in diameter, regularly shaped, naked, and insensibly diminishing to the height of sixty or seventy feet, where it divides itself into two or three primary branches. This species differs from the red and European elm in its flowers and seeds; it blooms in the month of April, previous to the unfolding of the leaves; the flowers are very small, of a purple color, supported by short, slender footstalks, and united in bunches at the extremity of the branches. The _Wahoo_ and the _Red Elm_ are interesting species. The _American Chesnut_ sometimes attains the height of seventy or eighty feet, with a circumference of fifteen or sixteen feet. Though this tree nearly resembles that of Europe in its general appearance, its foliage, its fruit and the properties of its wood, it is treated by botanists as a distinct species. Its leaves are six or seven inches long, one and a half broad, coarsely toothed, of an elongated oval form, of a fine, brilliant color and of a firm texture, with prominent parallel nerves beneath. It flowers in June. The fruit is spherical, covered with fine prickles, and stored with two dark brown seeds or nuts, about as large as the end of the finger. They are smaller and sweeter than the wild chesnuts of Europe. They are ripe about the middle of October. The wood is strong, elastic and capable of enduring the succession of dryness and moisture. _Buttonwood_ or _Sycamore_.――Among trees with deciduous leaves, none in the temperate zones, either in the old or new continent, equal the dimensions of the planes. The species which we are about to describe 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 Beach_. 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 Tree_. This tree, in no part of the United States, is more abundant and vigorous than along the rivers of Pennsylvania and Virginia; though in the more fertile valleys of the west, its vegetation is still more luxuriant, especially on the banks of the Ohio and of the rivers that flow into it.