656 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 
ACER PLATANOIDES, Norway Mapie 
Acer platanoides, Linneus, Sp. Pi. 1055 (1755); Loudon, Avd. et Frut. Brit. i. 408 (1838); 
Willkomm, Forstliche Flora, 757 (1887); Mathieu, lore Forestitre, 41 (1897). 
A tree, attaining occasionally 90 feet in height, but usually smaller. Bark 
smooth on young trees, but ultimately becoming rough and fissured longitudinally. 
Young branchlets glabrous, not remaining green throughout the first year. Leaves 
(Plate 206, Fig. 11) averaging 5 inches long by 7 inches wide, five-lobed; lobes 
oblong with an acuminate bristle-pointed apex; sinuses wide, rounded and open, 
not reaching the middle of the leaf; base cordate; margin non-ciliate and with a 
few large sinuate pointed teeth; both surfaces shining, green, and glabrous, 
except for tufts of pubescence in the axils of the primary and secondary nerves 
beneath ; petiole with milky sap. 
Flowers, opening early before the leaves expand, in erect corymbs, yellowish- 
green; the earliest mostly staminate, those opening later perfect ; stamens 8, as long 
as the sepals ; pedicels, calyx, corolla, filaments, and ovary glabrous. Fruit pendulous, 
on long stalks, glabrous ; keys about 13 inch long ; wings widely divergent. 
In summer the Norway maple is readily distinguishable by the leaves shining 
on both surfaces, with long pointed lobes and teeth, and by the milky sap in the 
petioles. In winter the twigs are shining, glabrous, with very narrow three-dotted 
leaf-scars, the opposite pairs of which are joined at the ends around the stem. 
Terminal buds 4 inch long, sessile ; scales shining, either green at the base and 
reddish-brown above, or reddish-brown throughout, glabrous, ciliate. Lateral buds 
appressed to the stem. 
VARIETIES 
A large number of varieties have appeared in cultivation, of which the most 
noteworthy are :— 
1. Var. Jactntatum, Aiton,’ Eagle’s Claw or Hawk’s-foot Maple. Said by 
Loudon to have originated in the seed-bed. Leaves (Plate 205, Fig. 10) about half 
the size of the type, cuneate at the base; lobes acutely, deeply, and irregularly cut; 
margin rolled up. This variety usually attains to no great size, but Sir Hugh 
Beevor tells us of a tree at Gelderstone Hall near Beccles, Suffolk, 50 feet high by 
2 feet 8 inches in girth; and Renwick in 1907 measured one at Auchendrane, 
Ayrshire, 48 feet by 3 feet 2 inches. 
2, Var. dissectum, Jacquin fil. (var. palmatum, Koch *) (A. Lorbergt, Van 
Houtte). Leaves (Plate 206, Fig. 21) deeply cut to near the base, which is cordate ; 
lobes five, ending in long sharp points, the three upper lobes again divided into 
theee lobules; margin with a few sharp-pointed teeth, First introduced from 
Belgium in 1845 by Knight of Chelsea, it grows to be a fair-sized tree, and is worth 
cultivating on account of its elegantly cut foliage. 
7 AY 
Hort, Kew, iii, 435 (1789). 2 Dendrologie, i. 530 (1869). 
