72 THE MAPLE AND THE SYCAMORE. 



the shell of the seed, of the self-same kind of nutriment. The likeness 

 of the foliage of a tree, especially when pendulous and waving, to hair, 

 and particularly to ringlets, is the ground of many a beautiful phrase 

 in the classic poets ;- Ovid, for instance, in his "arboreas mulceat aura 

 comas." Similar lines occur in many places in high-class English 

 poetry, and will occur on the instant to every accomplished mind. 

 These sycamore seeds vegetate with remarkable facility, and, from some 

 circumstance not yet determined, a larger proportion than of any other 

 tree grow up into the first stage of life that follows lactation. In the 

 spring, for one of any other self-sown seedling tree, there may generally 

 be observed a score of sycamores, illustrating in the most beautiful 

 manner, as growth proceeds, the gradual development of the handsome 

 leaf so characteristic of the species, 



By this last-named organ, the leaf, the sycamore and the maple may 

 alike be distinguished from almost every other British tree. While the 



Leaf of Acer, 



^prevailing form is oval, and the ash and some others are pinnate, here, 

 in the maple and sycamore, we have the shape termed fan-lobed or 

 palmate, familiar in the leaf of the grape-vine. The leaf, that is 

 to say, has about five great promontory-like projections, up to the point 

 of every one of which runs an independent vein. The sycamore has the 

 lobes acute, in the maple they are obtuse. In both trees, moreover, the 

 leaves grow in pairs, whereby the sycamore is at once distinguished 

 from that majestic exotic, the plane, in which they are disposed singly 

 attd alternately. There is no sort of relationship between the sycamore 



