SYCAMORE. 243 



exhibit green lines of tissue and golden brown 

 spotted with russet. But all these rich colours, 

 very beautiful in the earliest part of the season of 

 change, will merge into the uniformity of a dark 

 brown hue in the stage preceding the final decay. 



We must not 



* Unnoticed pass 



The Sycamore, capricious in attire ; 

 Now green, now tawny, and ere Autumn yet 

 Has changed the woods, in scarlet honours bright.' 



Frequently large and handsome, but various in 

 size, the five-lobed, indented leaf of the Sycamore 

 is remarkable for the beautiful character of its 

 venation. From the top of its long leaf stalk a 

 principal vein runs to the apex of each of its five 

 lobes, and gives origin to curved and opposite or 

 alternate branch veins which run to the margins 

 of the lobes. On close examination of the surface 

 of the tissue it will be seen that the roughly and 

 unequally parallel spaces formed by these branches 

 are crossed by veinlets which, running from branch 

 to branch, divide the whole of the leafy tissue 

 into small, irregularly-shaped spaces that are, in 



p 2 



