The occidental plane tree is, perhaps, the grandest of the American forest trees, and little inferior, in any respect, to the boasted plane tree of the Levant. The platanus orientalis attains, in its native forests, a diameter of from ten to sixteen feet. An American plane tree, which we measured, on the bank of the Ohio, between Cincinnati and the rapids at Louisville, was fourteen feet in diameter. One which stood, some years since, near the village of {22} Marietta, was found, by M. Michaux, to measure 15-7/10 ft. in diameter, at twenty feet from the ground.[027] They often rise to an elevation of one hundred and fifty feet. The branches are very large and numerous, forming a spreading top, densely covered with foliage. Many of those trees, which attain the greatest size, are decayed in the interior of the trunk, long after the annual increase continues to be added at the exterior circumference. The growth of the American plane tree does not appear to be very rapid. It was remarked by Humboldt, that in the hot and damp lands of North America, between the Mississippi and the Alleghany mountains, the growth of trees is about one-fifth more rapid than in Europe, taking for examples the platanus occidentalis, the liriodendron tulipifera, and the cupressus disticha, all of which reach from nine to fifteen feet in diameter. It is his opinion that the growth in these trees does not exceed a foot in diameter in ten years.[028] As far as our observation has enabled us to judge, this estimate rather exceeds than falls short of the truth. This growth is greatly exceeded in rapidity by the baobab, and other trees in the tropical parts of America; also by the gigantic adansonia of the eastern continent,[029] and equalled, perhaps, by several trees in our own climate, whose duration is less extended than that of those above mentioned.[030] The sycamore, or occidental plane tree, has been cultivated for more than one hundred and eighty years in England, yet it does not appear to have become entirely naturalized there, as we are informed by President Smith,[031] that great numbers were killed by the severe frost of the winters of 1810-11. In America this tree is very widely distributed, and {23} extends northward beyond the forty-fifth degree of north latitude. In the fertile alluvial lands of Otter Creek, and other rivers which discharge into Lake Champlain, the sycamore attains more than one-half the magnitude which it is seen to reach in the most prolific portions of the Mississippi valley; it appears, therefore, that some other cause than the frigidity of the climate, must have occasioned the destruction of the plane trees in England, since it is well known that the winters of Vermont and Lower Canada far surpass in severity those of the island of Great Britain. The fruit of the sycamore is the favourite food of the paroquet, and large flocks of these gaily-plumed birds constantly enliven the gloomy forests of the Ohio.