Acer pseudo-platanus, 
THE EUROPEAN SYCAMORE-TREE. 
Synonymes. 
Acer pseudo-platanus, 
( Linnaeus, Species Plantarum. 
| Michaux, North American Sylva. 
{ Don, Miller's Dictionary. 
I Loudon, Arboretum Britannicum. 
[ Selby, British Forest Trees. 
Erable blanc de montagne, Fausse pla- j France 
tane, Grand erable, Erable sycomore, j 
Ehrenbaum, Weisser Ahorn, Gemeiner j GermanYi 
Ahorn, ) 
Acero fico, Acero sicouioro, Platano falso, ) t taly . 
Platano salvatico, j 
Great Maple, Mock Plane-tree, England. 
Plane-tree, Scotland. 
European Sycamore, 
United States. 
Derivations. The botanic name, pseudo-platanus, is derived from the Latin, and signifies false plane-tree. The other nam 
are generally significant in themselves. 
Engravings. Michaux, North American Sylva, pi. 44; Loudon, Arboretum Britannicum, v., pi. 32; Selby, British Forest 
Trees, pp. 14, 15 et 21 ; and the figures below. 
Specific Characters. Leaves cordate, smooth, with 5 acuminated, unequally toothed lobes. Racemes pen 
dulous, rather compound, with the rachis, as well as the filaments of stamens, hairy. Fruit smooth, 
with the wings rather diverging. Don, Miller's Diet. 
Description. 
" Nor unnoticed pass 
The sycamore, capricious in attire ; 
Now green, now tawny ; and ere autumn yet 
Has changed the woods, in scarlet honours bright." 
COWPER. 
@f|HE Great Maple or 
S S~P P Sycamore, vying in 
D? LI f(5> point of magnitude, 
le^^sl with the oak, the ash, 
and other trees of the first rank ; presents a 
grand, unbroken mass of foliage. It forms a 
beautiful contrast in appropriate situations, and 
when judiciously grouped with trees of a lighter 
and more airy character, it affords an " impene- 
trable shade." In favourable situations, it at- 
tains a height of seventy to one hundred feet, 
and from three to six feet in diameter ; but ordi- 
narily, it grows only to one half of these dimen- 
sions. It is a tree of quick growth, with a 
smooth, ash-gray bark, and round, spreading 
branches. The bark of old trees, in peeling off, 
frequently leaves patches on their trunks of vari- 
ous hues, in a similar manner as that of the 
platanus. The leaves on long foot-stalks are four or five inches broad, pal- 
mate, with five acute, variously serrated lobes; the middle one largest, pale, or 
glaucous beneath. The flowers, which appear in May and June, are green, 
about the size of a currant-blossom, and disposed into axillary, pendulous, com- 
