The Field Maple is full of sugary sap, but nothing is made of it in this country, as the trees do not yield enough to make it worth while. But in Canada the sap is drawn from the trees and made into sugar. I am sure you must have seen the brown blocks of Maple sugar in the confectioners’ windows.
The wood of the Field Maple is too small to be of much use, but it is strangely and beautifully marked and veined with spots and stripes like the skin of a tiger or panther, and is eagerly bought for decorative purposes. The knots that grow on the roots were said to be worth their weight in gold, and in old history books you read that the thrones of great kings were made of Maple. Nowadays the wood is largely used for making small articles such as plates, and cups, and trays, and it can be cut so thin without breaking that the light may be seen through it.
In France the long slender Maple shoots are used for coachmen’s whips.
PLATE XI
THE SYCAMORE, OR GREAT MAPLE, OR MOCK PLANE
There is a good deal of confusion in people’s minds as to the right name for this familiar tree. Sycamore is not an English word, but is made from a Greek word meaning fig or mulberry. The tree has been so called because many years ago people believed that it was a relation of the fig tree which grows so abundantly by the roadside in Palestine. The leaves are a little alike, but there is no real resemblance between our English Great Maple and the Eastern Sycamore: the name has been given by mistake.
Another mistaken name given to this tree is Plane tree. The Great Maple is only a mock Plane tree or false Plane tree; it is not even a relation of the real Plane any more than it is a relation of the Fig or Sycamore. But mistakes even in names are very difficult to correct, and in many places, particularly in Scotland, you will find that Sycamore (1) or Plane tree is the name usually given to the Great Maple.
It is a large heavy tree, with a great central trunk covered with a gnarled bark which peels off in flakes, leaving patches of different shades. From every side of this central trunk there grow stout branches covered with masses of thick foliage, the thickest and heaviest foliage of any British tree.
If you look at the Sycamore tree as it stands in an open field, or in a hedgerow, with grass growing close to its very trunk, I think what will strike you most is how evenly it has grown all round. There are so many trees that grow all to one side if they are much exposed to a cold wind. Look at the Beech, or the Hawthorn, or the Elm on the crest of a ridge, and you will at once know from which direction the wind blows strongest and coldest, by seeing how the tree puts out all its best branches on the sheltered side. But the Sycamore tree is indifferent to cold, or even to the salt sea winds; it sends out its branches equally on every side, and there is always a thick roof of leaves at the top.
The Sycamore tree prefers a dry soil, in which it grows very quickly; and it will not die if transplanted.
In early spring the twigs bear many large fat buds (3), which are covered with soft downy pink scales. The Horse Chestnut is the only other tree which bears such large buds, but they are dark and very sticky.