The Maples 



developed a great number of beautiful garden varieties. These 

 are dwarf forms, almost without exception, low and usually 

 spreading in habit, as if to show to best advantage the wonderful 

 form and exquisite colouring of the foliage and fruits. 



Acer palmatum and A. Japonicum, with their varieties, 

 show all possible gradations from a broad palm to the merest 

 skeleton of a leaf. The Japanese worship beauty such as these 

 garden maples show; and in the autumn when each careful 

 gardener has brought his maples to their utmost perfection, a 

 grand national fete is celebrated. The people dress for a holiday, 

 and go forth "to view the maples." It is a day of picknicking, 

 combined with mushroom gathering and a sort of aesthetic jubilee 

 — as much a time for rejoicing as the spring jubilee of the cherry 

 blossoms. Japanese maples are among our most beautiful exotics. 

 They are quite at home in American gardens, and there is nothing 

 like them. Well might we turn pilgrims like the Japanese, and 

 by much planting and close watching come to know and appre- 

 ciate them. 



Acer Japonicum, the type, is throughout the season a uniform 

 rich dark purple. Acer Nikoense, a large species, has vivid scarlet 

 autumnal foliage. Other species of maples are imported from 

 eastern Asia, and one or two each from the Himalayas, the Cau- 

 casus and North Africa. But the Japanese lead them all. 



The European Maples 



The Sycamore Maple (A. pseudo-platanus) is the most 

 important hardwood tree in Europe. It ranks with our hard 

 maple, and with a Himalayan species of great lumber value. It 

 is the wood out of which deal tables are made. 



In America, where it is planted to some extent, it is thrifty 

 but short lived. It may be known by its thick 5-lobed, sycamore- 

 like leaves, with crenate margins, and the long, pendulous racemes 

 of flowers or keys, which may be found at any season on good- 

 sized trees. It is chiefly set as a street tree, but its head is rather 

 too spreading to use except on wide avenues. 



The Norway Maple (A. plaianoides) is a round-headed 

 tree, of dense foHage which turns yellow in the fall. It is one 

 of our best exotic maples, growing rapidly and to great size. Its 

 broad, 5-lobed leaves are remotely toothed, and smooth and 



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