swollen, and will probably not burst for some weeks yet, 
whilst most of the other Maples are in young leaf. 
According to M. Van Volxem, the earliest notice of this 
plant under cultivation is in Vilmorin’s Catalogue of 1867, 
where it is said to be a native of Pontus, at an elevation of 
1500 metres; M. Van Volxem’s own plants were raised 
from seed collected by Balansa, he believes, in Lazistan.> 
Boissier gives the mountains of North Persia (provinces of 
Talysch, Ghilan, and Asterabad) as the habitat of A. 
msigne ; and woods of Ghilan in South Persia as that of 
the var. velutina (under which name this has been culti- : 
vated). 
I am indebted to Dr. Masters for the specimen figured, 
which flowered in his garden on May 23rd, 1882, before the 
plants did at Kew in the same year, and which were also 
received from M. Van Volxem. 
Descr. A tree. Branchlets rather stout, terete, dark 
brown ; buds ovoid, stout.. Leaves five to six inches in 
diameter, rounded-reniform in outline, palmately divided to 
the middle into five to seven oblong acute coarsely obtusely 
serrated lobes, glabrous above, beneath more or less 
tomentose. Flowers one-fourth of an inch in diameter, 
green, in terminal pyramidal panicles three to four inches 
long, appearing with the leaves, polygamous, the males with 
long slender exserted stamens, the hermaphrodite with very 
short stamens. Sepals ovate, obtuse. Petals hardly longer 
than the sepals, small, linear. Filaments quite glabrous ; 
anthers small. Ovary hairy.—J. D. H. 
. Fig. 1, Male flower; .2, the same cut vertically; 3, female flower; 4, stamens 
» ovary; 6, young fruit; 7, diagram of floral organs :—all enlarged. 
