160 THE SPINACH FAMILY. 



2. Common Maple— (^4 ccr campestre.) 



In hedges, but for the most part as a scraggy bush, rather than the 



handsome round-headed tree it becomes in parts of the country more 



congenial to its taste. Pennington, near Leigh ; Bedford ; Gorton ; 



on Werneth Lowe ; and on the banks of the Goyt, below Strines, 



ripening fruit every autumn. Occasionally in shrubberies. Fl. May, 



June. 



E. B. V. 304 ; Baxter ii. 98. 



Two or three North American Acers occur in plantations, especially the ti'ue 

 sugar maple, or Acer saccharinum, of which there are some handsome and freely 

 flowering specimens by the banks of the canfil between Clifton and Salford. 

 Fig. 115 shews the form of the leaves and fruit. 



XXXVIIL— THE SPINACH FAMILY. Chenopddea. 



Herbaceous or under-shrubby plants, weedy in habit, one to three 

 feet high, closely resembling the Amaranth Family in structure, 

 but seldom aspiring to their beauty. The flowers consist only of a 

 calyx, which is generally five-lobed, regular, and persistent, with 

 usually five stamens, a single ovary, and a solitary seed. They ai'e 

 frequently unisexual, and almost always green, minute, and insig- 

 nificant, the inflorescence in axillary or terminal spikes or panicles. 

 Some species have a tendency to extend the perianth, after flowering, 

 into horizontal wings, \vhich gives them a very peculiar look ; while 

 others secrete abundance of coloured juice in their sepals, the number 

 and closeness of these parts making the stalks appear clothed with 

 sessile strawberries. This is particularly conspicuous in the straw- 

 berry-blite, or BUtum virgatum, one of the favourite curiosities of 

 Lancashire botanists. 



ChcnopodecD are exceedingly common in all the northern parts of 

 Europe and Asia, and in several cases supply wholesome articles of 

 food, as spinach, in its leaves, and the beet, in its great red root, 

 famous as the principal source of sugar to the French. Carbonate of 

 soda, in the crude condition called Barilla, is yielded in immense 

 quantities by the seaside-haunting .species, which are numerous, and 

 a few arc accounted serviceable as medicines. 



Twenty-five species grow wild in England, and seven of them near 

 Manchester. 



