MAPLE 151 



being nearly parallel, or at all events not making more 

 than a right angle with each other, while in the maple 

 the two are almost or quite in a straight line with each 

 other, so that their extremities are as far from each other 

 as it is possible for them to be. 



MAPLE (Acer Cajipestre) 



The Maple, Acer campestre, is undoubtedly a true 

 native, indigenous in south England and the midland 

 counties, but not in Scotland or Ireland. Its Anglo-Saxon 

 name is mapul, a sufficient explanation of its popular name, 

 though one authority on plants would have us believe 

 that we call it maple from the Latin amabilis, because the 

 plant has such beautiful leaves. 



The maple may sometimes be found as a tree, and 

 attaining to a height of thirty feet or so, or even, under 

 exceptional circumstances, more than this. Chaucer, in the 

 Romant of the Rose, writes — 



There were elmes great and strong, 

 Maples, ash 



thus giving it full arboreal rank, but we more ordinarily 

 find it in hedge or copse as scarcely more than a large bush. 

 It bears the shears well, and in those bygone days, when 

 it was the fashion to border the parterres with grotesquely 

 fashioned hedges, bearing some sort of similitude to bird 

 or beast, some resemblance to globe or pyramid, the maple 

 was in great request. It flourishes in a chalky soil, though 

 one may find it doing well almost anywhere. 



The wood of the maple is very compact, and of fine 

 grain, but the outer bark is curiously corky and rough, 



