THE MAPLE AND THE SYCAMORE. 131 



when the fruit is ripe. The maple and the sycamore 

 belong to a section which appeals to us most power- 

 fully when the flowering is over, and the seed- 

 vessels, fully formed, but still only incipient, begin 

 to display themselves among the green. For though 

 pretty in their way, and conspicuous from their 

 abundance, at all events in the sycamore, the flowers 

 of these two trees make a very trifling show ; while 

 in the figui^e of the leaves, in the ripened fruit, and 

 even in the autumnal tinting of the former, there is 

 nothing by which they would at once be singled out 

 from the mass. Look at them, however, about the 

 time that the laburnums have ceased their rain of 

 gold, when the ferns are fast unrolling, and "the 

 first rose of summer, sweet blooming alone," steps 

 forth in the hedgerow like a planet in the evening 

 sky, and whatever they were before, now they seem 

 decked in every part with lively bloom. The colour 

 and the gaiety are given by the clusters of rudiment- 

 ary fruit, which in the maple is brownish-red, and 

 in the sycamore pinky-yellow. Sometimes the dis- 

 play is delayed a little; but the fact remains the 

 same that these two trees make more show during 

 the period of gestation than during any other portion 

 of their active life. By the peculiar form of the 

 fruit, they are at once distinguished also from every 

 other kind of tree which grows, either wild or as a 

 colonist, in Great Britian. Instead of some sort of 

 nut or acorn, like that of the oak ; instead of a cone, 



K 2 



