148 ACER 



A. MICRANTHUM, Siebold. 

 (Flora Japonica, t. 80.) 



A small, deciduous, tree, sometimes a shrub. Leaves five-lobed, 2 to 3^ ins. 

 long and wide, smooth except for a tuft of hairs at the base, where the ribs join 

 the stalk ; lobes ovate with a long drawn-out point, deeply and handsomely 

 toothed ; base heart-shaped ; leaf-stalk downy. Flowers greenish white, 

 numerous, on slender racemes \\ to 3 ins. long, small (about \ in. across). 

 Fruits smooth ; keys to I in. long ; wings in. wide, rounded at the end, 

 spreading at a wide angle. 



Native of Japan ; introduced about 1879. The foliage turns a bright red in 

 autumn, and, on young trees at any rate, is very prettily cut. It belongs to the 

 same group of maples as A. rufinerve and A. capillipes, with doubly toothed 

 leaves and flowers in racemes, but differs in the more numerously lobed leaves. 



A. MiYABEl, Maximowicz, MlYABE's MAPLE. 



(Garden and Forest, 1893, p. 143.) 



A deciduous tree, 30 to 40 ft. high, with a trunk 12 to 18 ins. in diameter, of 

 rounded habit ; branchlets at first minutely downy. Leaves 4 to 6 ins. wide, 

 not quite so long, deeply three-lobed, the lower pair of lobes usually again 

 divided into two, but not deeply so ; lobes ovate, with a long blunt apex, 

 the margins cut into several large rounded teeth ; stalks downy, as are also 

 both surfaces, especially on the ribs and chief veins. On young trees the 

 leaves are deeply notched at the base, but on older ones they are frequently 

 truncate. Flowers yellow, downy, produced a few together each on a slender 

 stalk in corymbs 2 to 3 ins. long. Fruit with downy nutlets ; keys f to I in. 

 long; wings \ in. wide, slightly reflexed beyond the horizontal position. 



Native of Japan ; sent to Kew in 1895 by Prof. Sargent, who had discovered 

 this rare tree in September 1892, in a new locality in Yezo. He records the 

 incident in the Forest Flora of Japan, p. 29 : 



"We stopped quite by accident at Iwanigawa, a railroad junction in Yezo some 

 40 or 50 miles from Sapporo, and, having a few minutes on our hands, strolled out of the 

 town to a small grove of trees. In this grove, occupying a piece of low ground on the 

 borders of a small stream, and chiefly composed of Acer pictum, was A. Miyabei covered 

 with fruit. The find was a lucky one, for Iwanigawa is a long way from the station 

 where this maple had been discovered, and mature fruit had not been seen before. From 

 these trees I obtained later a supply of seeds, enough to make this maple common in the 

 gardens of America and Europe." 



It is thriving well at Kew, and is evidently well adapted for the English 

 climate. Of European maples A. platanoides is most closely related to it, and 

 it has, like that species, milky juice in the leaf-stalks. 



A. MONSPESSULANUM, Linnceus. MONTPELIER MAPLE. 



A deciduous tree of dense, rounded habit, occasionally more than 50 ft. 

 (usually 20 to 30 ft.) high, sometimes scarcely more than a shrub ; branchlets 

 smooth. Leaves three-lobed, with a heart-shaped base ; i to 2^ ins. wide, 

 less in length dark green and glossy above, paler below, soon quite smooth 

 on both surfaces, except for a tuft of down^where the three prominent veins 

 join the stalk, which is I to 2 ins. long and has no milky sap. Flowers greenish 

 yellow, borne on drooping slender stalks f to over i in. long, in few-flowered 

 corymbs or loose racemes. Fruit reddish, often very abundant, with wings 

 | to i in. long, to in. wide, and pointing- downwards, so that the inner 

 edges nearly meet or even overlap. 



