The occidental plane-tree.
1775. Western plantane, with lobated leaves (vulgo) button wood, water beech, or sycamore.—B. Romans, ‘Florida,’ p. 27.
1781. Elms and button-trees surround the center square [of Newhaven].—Samuel Peters, ‘History of Connecticut,’ p. 185 (Lond.).
1791. Along the streams, the timber runs mostly on button wood, beach (sic) and maple.—Mass. Spy, Jan. 6.
1792. Button-wood (platanus occidentalis) is a large tree, but as tough as the hornbeam. It is used for windlasses, wheels and blocks.—Jeremy Belknap, ‘New Hampshire,’ iii. 102.
1799. The old button-wood meeting-house in Philadelphia was made into a military riding-house.—The Aurora (Phila.), May 21.
1807. [The Lombardy poplar] is not comparable to the locust, the elm, the walnut, the buttonwood, or the oak.—“Mentor” in The Balance, May 12, p. 145.
1818. A piece of a large button-wood tree has been hollowed out and placed for a curb, to prevent people from falling into [the well].—Mass. Spy, Oct. 14.
1824. The buttonwood is neither good for fuel nor timber.—Mass. Yeoman, April 21.
1851. General Washington measured a Button-wood growing on an island in the Ohio, and found its girth, at five feet from the ground, about forty feet.—John S. Springer, ‘Forest Life,’ p. 16–7 (N.Y.).
1858. The button-wood throws off its bark in large flakes, which one may find lying at its foot, pushed out, and at last pushed off, by that tranquil movement from beneath, which is too slow to be seen, but too powerful to be arrested.—Holmes, ‘The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table,’ chap. vii.
