The Japanese people are worshippers of beauty and they delight particularly in garden shows. In the autumn, when the maples have reached perfection, the populace turns out in holiday attire to celebrate a grand national fête. A sort of æsthetic jubilee it is, like the spring jubilee of the cherry blossom. To each careful gardener who has patiently toiled to bring his maples to perfection, it is sufficient reward that the people make this annual pilgrimage to view them.
The Box Elder
A. Negundo, Linn.
The box elder is the one maple whose leaves are always cleft to the stem, making it compound of irregularly toothed leaflets. The clusters of flattened keys, which hang all winter on the trees, declare the kinship of this tree to the maples.
Fast-growing, hardy, willing to grow in treeless regions, this tree has spread from its eastern range throughout the plains, where shelter belts were the first needs of the settlers. Pretty at first, these box elders are soon broken down and unsightly. They should be used only as temporary trees, alternating with elms, hard maples, and ashes. Where they are neglected, or continue to be planted, the character of the town or the premises must be cheap and ugly.
The Norway Maple
A. platanoides, Linn.
The Norway maple is counted the best maple we have for street planting. Broad, thin leaves, three-lobed by wide sinuses, cover with a thick thatch the rounded head of the tree. Green on both sides, thin and smooth, these leaves seem to withstand remarkably the smoke, soot, and dust of cities, and also the attacks of insects. The keys are large, wide-winged, set opposite, the nutlets meeting in a straight line. These pale green key clusters are very handsome among the green leaves in summer—the tree's chief ornament until the foliage mass turns yellow in autumn. A peculiarity of the Norway maple is the milky juice that starts from a broken leaf-stem.
The Sycamore Maple
A. pseudo-platanus, Linn.