CHAP. XXII, 



y/CERA 



A CER. 



415 



Leaves blotched with white. This variety is much more common 

 than the other. Tschoudi says of it, that it is one of the finest 

 trees that can be seen ; and that, in the beginning of summer, it 

 is delightful to stand under it, and look through the leaves to the 

 sun. At a short distance, he adds, the leaves are as beautiful as 

 flowers. In Britain, however, like the leaves of most other variegated 

 deciduous trees, they soon become ragged, and lose, in autumn, by 

 d\ing off of a dirty colour and diseased appearance, what they have 

 gained by their whiteness and transparency in spring. Of all the 

 variegated varieties of ^4 v cer, however, it must be acknowledged that 

 this variety is to be considered the most ornamental. 

 A. P. 4>purptirea Hort. The purple-leaved Sycamore. The leaves are of 

 a fine purple underneath. This variety was originated in Saunders's 

 Nursery, Jersey, about 1828, and is now to be met with in all the 

 principal nurseries. The tree has a very fine appearance when the 

 leaves are slightly ruffled by the wind, alternately appearing clothed 

 in purple and in pale green. In spring, when the leaves first ex- 

 pand, the purple bloom is not obvious ; but when they become ma- 

 tured it is very distinct. 



A. P. 5 subobtiisa Dec. Prod., i. p. 594. The half-obtuse-leaved Syca- 

 more. Lobes of leaves blunter ; fruit and wings larger. A. opuli- 

 folium T/ntil. Fl. Par., 538. A. ritifolium Opiz. 

 3f A. P. 6 lacinidta Loud. Hort. Brit., p. 412. The cut-leaved Sycamore. 

 Lobes of leaves jagged. (Schm. Arb., i. 5. ; Don's Mill., i. p. 648.) 

 Other Varieties. In the garden of the London Horticultural Society there 

 is a variety called Hodgkins's Seedling, with yellow blotched leaves ; and 

 another, called Leslie's Seedling. In Hayne's Dendrologische Flora there 

 are, also, the following varieties : A. P. stenoptera, A. P. macroptera, and 

 A. P. microptera, which differ in the proportions of the wings of the keys, 

 and do not appear worth farther notice. 



Description. A large handsome tree, of quick growth, with a smooth ash- 

 coloured bark, and round spreading branches. Leaves on long footstalks, 

 4 in. or 5 in. broad, palmate, with 5 acute, variously serrated lobes; the middle 

 one largest, pale or glaucous beneath. Flowers green, the size of a currant 

 blossom, disposed into axillary, pendulous, compound clusters. Capsules 2 

 or 3, with broad spreading wings. (Smith's Eng. Flora, ii. p. 230., with adapt- 

 ation.) The fruits of this species are botanical ly interesting, from the readiness 

 with which the funiculus may be traced in its passage through the base of the 

 samara to its union with the seed ; and from the neat and copious lining of 

 soft and glossy down, with which the interior of the cell of the samara is coated, 

 as if for a commodious lodging for the seed, till wind shall have acted on the 

 wing of the samara, and disseminated it, and the moisture of the earth whereon 

 it falls shall have excited the seed it contains to germinate. In this species, 

 the cotyledons are circinately folded, and incumbent on the radicle. The 

 cotyledons, but, perhaps, after germination, and the primordial leaves (those 

 first produced on germination), are, when chewed, bitter. Professor Henslow 

 l\ /i ^ r\ . has found, by " a careful search 



among the numerous young plants 

 of this tree which every where 

 spring up in its neighbourhood, 

 many in which the cotyledons were 

 either three or four. In some in- 

 stances, where there were only two, 

 as usual, one of them was more 

 or less cloven down the middle 

 (fig. 110. a); and these served to 

 illustrate, in a marked manner, the way in which others had become possessed 

 of more than their ordinary number. For, in these cases, either two of the 

 cotyledons were not, at first, so large as the third, when there were three 



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