194 THE STORY OF PLANT LIFE 



grained and beautiful. The leaves are opposite, 

 short-stalked, palmate or five-lobed, the lobes broad, 

 blunt, entire, scalloped, or wavy, kidney-shaped, 

 downy when young. There are no stipules. 



The flowers are in loose, erect racemes, or corymbs, 

 not so long as the leaves. They are yellowish-green, 

 few, on slender stalks. The sepals are hairy, linear 

 to oblong. The petals are narrower. The fruit is a 

 samara with downy carpels, the wings spreading 

 horizontally. The eight stamens of the male flowers 

 are as long as the corolla. 



The Field Maple is in flower in May and June. It 

 is a deciduous tree. 



The flowers are often polygamous, functionally 

 male or female, with functional stamens and a 

 rudimentary pistil, or with a functional pistil and 

 rudimentary stamens that do not shed pollen. 

 The earlier lower ones may be male, the terminal 

 ones bisexual. The sexes may occur together on 

 the same inflorescence, and the plants may be 

 andromonoecious, and be androdioecious or even 

 dioecious (or with the sexes on different trees). The 

 honey is secreted on a disc between the petals and 

 stamens. 



The winged " samaras," really schizocarps of two 

 carpels, are dispersed by the wind. Each chamber 

 of the ovary contains a single exalbuminous seed, 

 with folded cotyledons. The embryo is curved like 

 a horse-shoe. 



The name acer refers to the hard wood. When 



