642 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 
angle, generally directed forwards, about 14 inch long; wings green, narrow below, 
scimitar-shaped. Seed obovate, without albumen; cotyledons narrow, long, either 
spirally coiled or plicate. 
Seedling.'—Cotyledons normally two, rarely three, carried above ground on 
germination, 13 to 2 inches long, oblong, sessile, obtuse, entire in margin, 
obscurely three-nerved, glabrous, pale-green. Caulicle, 4 to 1 inch long, glabrous, 
ending in a tapering, flexuose, primary root, which gives off a few lateral fibres. 
Young stem terete, glabrous. First pair of leaves, ovate, cordate at the base, 
palmately five-nerved, acuminate, irregularly serrate. Second and third pairs 
similarly cordate and five-nerved, distinctly three-lobed; terminal lobe long, 
triangular-ovate; lateral lobes short, broad, with two indistinct lobules or teeth. 
Succeeding pairs resemble those of the adult plant. 
Seedlings with three cotyledons, observed by Sir W. Thiselton Dyer,’ bore 
leaves in whorls of threes in their first and second years; but in the third and 
following years they reverted to the ordinary type with opposite leaves. 
IDENTIFICATION 
In summer the sycamore is readily distinguishable by the shape of the leaves, 
and can only be confused with A. zxszgne, from which it differs markedly in the 
buds, as explained under the latter species. 
In winter the twigs are shining, glabrous. Buds sessile, ovoid; terminal 
buds larger than the lateral buds, which arise from the twigs at an angle of 45°; 
scales, six to eight visible externally, in opposite decussate pairs, green with dark 
edges, glabrous or slightly pubescent near the tip, ciliate in margin. Leaf-scars 
not joining around the twig, crescentic or V-shaped, three-dotted. The bud-scales 
are homologous with leaf-bases, and fall off when the bud opens, showing at this 
stage a minute three-lobed projection at the tip, which corresponds to a leaf- 
blade. 
VARIETIES 
The sycamore is remarkably constant in foliage in the wild state,’ only one 
well-marked geographical form being known :— 
Var. villosa, Parlatore, FV. [tal. v. 404 (1872). Leaves coriaceous ; base widely 
cordate, margin coarsely toothed, lower surface pubescent throughout in early 
spring. Fruits usually tomentose, with very broad wings. This variety occurs in 
the mountains of Sicily, Calabria, and Dalmatia. 
In the common wild form the leaves are scarcely coriaceous, and are only 
pubescent along the nerves beneath, while the fruit is glabrous. From the common 
form, numerous varieties have arisen in cultivation, as many as fifty being 
1 Cf. Lubbock, Seedlings, i. 360, f. 252 (1892). 
3 Ann. of Botany, xvi. 553, plate xxiv. (1902). In plate xxv. an abnormal seedling is figured, in which three cotyledons 
are followed by two leaves, one of which is bi-partite. Cf. Loudon, of. c7Z. p. 415. 
3 Ona tree growing in Tullymore Park, Co. Down, Ireland, many of the branchlets bore the leaves alternately and not 
in pairs, Specimens of this were sent to the Kew Herbarium in 1871, 
