THE MAPLE-TREE.
[Acer.[L] Nat. Ord.—Aceraceæ; Linn. Octan. Monog.]
[L] Generic characters. Calyx inferior, 5-cleft. Petals 5, obovate. Fruit consisting of 2 capsules, united at the base, indehiscent and winged (a samara). Trees, with simple leaves and flowers, often polygamous, in axillary corymbs or racemes.
The Common Maple (A. campestre) is found throughout the middle states of Europe, and in the north of Asia. It is common in hedges and thickets in the middle and south of England, but is rare in the northern counties and in Scotland, and is not indigenous in Ireland. It is a rather small tree, of no great figure, so that it is seldom seen employed in any nobler service than in filling up a part in a hedge, in company with thorns and briers. In a few instances, where it is met with in a state of maturity, its form appears picturesque. It is not much unlike the oak, only it is more bushy, and its branches are closer and more compact. Although it seldom attains a height of more than twenty feet, yet in favourable situations it rises to forty feet, as may be seen in Eastwell Park, Kent, and in Caversham Park, near Reading. The Rev. William Gilpin, from whose Remarks on Forest Scenery we have derived much interesting matter, is buried under the shade of a very large Maple in the church-yard of Boldre, in the New Forest, Hampshire.
The botanical characters of A. campestre are:—Leaves about one and a half inch in width, downy while young, as are their foot-stalks, obtusely five-lobed, here and there notched, sometimes quite entire. Flowers green, in clusters that terminate the young shoots, hairy, erect, short, and somewhat corymbose. Anthers hairy between the lobes. Capsules downy, spreading horizontally, with smooth, oblong, reddish wings. Bark corky, and full of fissures; that of the branches smooth. Flowers in May and June.
The ancients held this tree in great repute. Ovid compares it to the Lime:
The Maple not unlike the lime-tree grows,
Like her, her spreading arms abroad she throws,
Well clothed with leaves, but that the Maple's bole
Is clad by nature with a ruder stole.
