Distribution. Western Texas, common; valley of the Colorado River, near Austin, Travis County, to that of the Devil’s River, Valverde County; in Coahuila and Nuovo Leon; rarely northward with widely scattered individuals; the prevailing form on the Edwards Plateau and in the counties adjacent to the Rio Grande.
2. [Platanus racemosa] Nutt. Sycamore.
Leaves 3—5-lobed to below the middle by broad sinuses acute or rounded in the bottom, the lobes acute or acuminate, entire, dentate with remote callous tipped teeth, or occasionally coarsely sinuate-toothed, usually cordate or sometimes truncate, or cuneate and decurrent on the petiole at base, thick and firm, light green above, paler and more or less thickly coated below with pale pubescence most abundant along the midrib and primary veins, 6′—10′ long and broad; petioles stout, pubescent, 1′—3′ in length; stipules 1′—1½′ long, entire or dentate, often persistent until spring. Flowers: peduncles hoary-pubescent, bearing usually 4 or 5 heads of staminate flowers and 2—7 heads of pistillate flowers, a head of the staminate flowers occasionally appearing on the pistillate peduncle above the heads of fertile flowers. Fruit: heads ¾′ in diameter, on slender zigzag glabrous or pubescent stems 6′—9′ in length; akene acute or rounded at apex, ⅓′ long, tomentose while young, becoming glabrous.
A tree, 40°—90° high, with a trunk sometimes 9° in diameter above the broad tapering base, erect and free of branches for half its height, more often divided near the ground into secondary stems erect, inclining, or prostrate for 20°—30° at their base, thick heavy more or less contorted spreading branches forming an open irregular round-topped head, and branchlets coated at first with thick pale deciduous tomentum, light reddish brown, and marked by numerous small lenticels in their first winter, becoming gradually darker in their second and third years; usually smaller, with a trunk 2°—4° in diameter. Winter-buds nearly ½′ long. Bark at the base of old trunks 3′—4′ thick, dark brown, deeply furrowed, with broad rounded ridges separating on the surface into thin scales; thinner, smooth, and pale, or almost white higher on the trunk and on the branches.
Distribution. Banks of the streams of western California; valley of the upper Sacramento River (Tehama County) southward through the interior valleys, along the western foothills of the Sierra Nevada and on the southern coast ranges; and on Mount San Pedro Màrtir in Lower California; exceedingly common in all the valleys of the California coast ranges from Monterey to the southern borders of the state, and ascending the southern slopes of the San Bernardino Mountains to altitudes of 3000°—4000°.
3. [Platanus Wrightii] S. Wats. Sycamore.
Leaves divided by narrow sinuses to below the middle and sometimes nearly to the center into 3—7 but usually into 3—5 elongated acute lobes entire, or dentate with callous-tipped teeth, or occasionally furnished with 1 or 2 lateral lobes, sometimes deeply cordate by the downward projection of the lower lobes, or often truncate or cuneate at base, thin and firm in texture, light green and glabrous above, covered below with pale pubescence, 6′—8′ long and broad, with a slender midrib, and primary veins connected by conspicuous reticulate veinlets; petioles stout, glabrous or puberulous, 1½′—3′ in length. Flowers: peduncles hoary-tomentose, bearing 1—4 heads of flowers. Fruit: heads on slender glabrous stems 6′—8′ long, about ¾′ in diameter; akenes glabrous, ¼′ long, truncate at apex.
A tree, often 60°—80° high, with a straight trunk 4°—5° in diameter, gradually tapering and free of branches for 20°—30°, or with a trunk divided at the ground into 2 or 3 large stems usually more or less reclining and often nearly prostrate for 15°—20°, thick contorted branches, the lowest growing almost at right angles to the trunk and 50°—60° long, the upper usually erect at first, finally spreading into a broad open handsome head, and slender branchlets coated when they first appear with thick pale tomentum, becoming glabrous or slightly puberulous during their first winter, marked by minute scattered lenticels, and light brown tinged with red or ashy gray, and gradually darker in their second or third year. Winter-buds hardly more than ⅛′ long. Bark at the base of the trunk dark, 3′—4′ thick, deeply and irregularly divided into broad ridges, and covered on the surface with small appressed scales, thinner and separating into large scales 10°—15° above the ground, and gradually passing into the smooth much thinner creamy white bark faintly tinged with green of the upper branches.