542 ACER. [CLASS VIII. ORDER I. 



2. A, campes'tre^ Linn. (Fig. 617.) Common Maple. Leaves five 

 lobed, the lobes oblong, entire, or sub-dentated ; racemes erect, downy; 

 fruit smooth or downy, with horizontal wings. 



English Botany, i. 304. — English Flora, vol. ii. p. 231. — Hooker, 

 British Flora, vol. i. p. 179. — Lindley, Synopsis, p. 56. 



A small tree, with spreading opposite branches, and rough bark, 

 deeply fissured, that of the young branches smooth dark brown. 

 Leaves opposite, on downy channeled footstalks, unequally five lobed, 

 entire, or mostly, each lobe is oblong and obtusely three lobed, and 

 more or less waved or toothed, glossy, and nearly smooth above, paler 

 and downy beneath, five ribbed, with tufts of white hairs in the axis of 

 divarication, and very finely reticulated with small pellucid veins. 

 Injiorescence an erect racemose corymb of yellowish green downy 

 flowers, on branched downy pedicles. Calyx of one piece, with about 

 five ligulate segments, scattered over with rather long white hairs, 

 especially on the margins. Petals alternating with and narrower than 

 the segments of the calyx, attached to the under edge of the disk^ 

 which is thick, fleshy, and forms a broad rim round the germen. 

 Stamens on slender filaments, longer than the petals, inserted into 

 depressions of the disk. Anthers rather large, yellow, of two cells, 

 and mostly hairy between the lobes. Styles short, with two spreading 

 stigmas. Capsules two, or rarely three, united at the base, smooth or 

 downy, single seeded, with smooth or downy membranous veined 

 horizontal wings. 



Habitat. — Hedges and thickets ; not uncommon, rare and scarcely 

 indigenous to Scotland or Ireland. 

 Tree ; flowering in May and June. 



Of this species we have observed several varieties in the leaves being 

 more or less dow^ny, the lobes narrower, and more toothed and entire, 

 and acutely pointed ; the flowers are also variable, sometimes they are 

 larger than is common, with a larger and more fleshy disk ; and the 

 fruit is sometimes scattered over with hairs, and is green or finely 

 marked with rich crimson coloured veins. The changes which take 

 place in the flowers of this species are remarkable. Shortly after the 

 anthers have discharged their pollen, the disk shrinks and loses its 

 fleshy appearance, and the ovarium rapidly enlarges, projecting laterally 

 its membranous wings ; the style is enlarged, the stigmas elongated 

 and recurved, or contorted, while the stamens and petals having per- 

 formed their offices, hang loosely at their base, and at length fall away. 

 From which it would seem that the disk is the source from whence the 

 stamens derive their immediate supply of nutriment ; and after they 

 have performed their function, the store of nutriment contained in the 

 disk is applied to the ovarium, and probably materially assists it in 

 its speedy developement. 



The common Maple forms, when cultivated, a pretty little orna- 

 mental tree ; its wood is harder than that of the last species, and is 



