262 AUTUMNAL LEAVES. 



the lane-banks in rural districts. In spring, 

 summer and Autumn, its foliage is extremely 

 beautiful, turning from its early golden green to 

 a mellow hue of verdancy and passing on to 

 richer and more striking tints in the later season. 

 Apart from its colouring at any season the 

 form and texture of its leaves are beautiful. In 

 general shape the Maple leaf resembles that of 

 the Sycamore, being somewhat similarly five- 

 lobed. But the lobes, instead of being cut into 

 numerous, small, rounded indentations, like thoso 

 of the Sycamore leaf, are divided into larger 

 lobes more suggestive of those of the Western 

 Plane, though, unlike the Plane lobes, they are 

 rounded and not acute-pointed. To the apex of 

 each of the five principal lobes a principal vein 

 runs from the top of the leaf-stalk, and smaller 

 veins, branching from the logger and larger 

 ones, run to the apices of the smaller lobes, the 

 spaces of tissue between the lines made by these 

 principal veins being traversed by a sort of 

 double network of veinlets a large-meshed net- 

 work if the expression may be used of veinlets 

 giving origin to a smaller network within it. If 



