94 ACERACE^. [Acer. 



*1. A. Pseudo ■ platamis, L. Greater Mftplc. Sycamore. 

 Leaves broadly and palmatelj- 5-lobed the sinuses acute, lobes 

 undivided coarsely and unequally dentate serrate plicato-rugose 

 acuminate the 3 anterior largest nearly equal, racemes pendulous 

 cylindrical many-flowered compound at the base, germen villous, 

 wings of the fruit deflexed converging. Br. Fl. p. 82. E. B. t 

 303. 



Naturalized here and there in hedgerows and bushy places. Fl. April, May. 



-B. Med. — Near Lessland farm, about the great withy-bed, apparently quite 

 naturalized. Abundantly on the slipped clay-banks by the shore at the Priory. 

 I observe the sides of Ashey Down above Knighton to be covered with abundant 

 seedlings of this tree, although no full-grown plants are to be seen in its vicinity. 

 Dr. Bell-Salter has remarked the same thing. 



W. Med. — Naturalized on the woody banks about Gatcombe. By the road- 

 side going into Chale from Blackgang. 



A handsome tree, of broad ample foliage, sometimes of great height, in this 

 island seldom exceeding 40 or 50 feet, the branches in young trees long, straight 

 and nearly upright, in old ones much and irregularly ramified, crooked and 

 spreading, covered like the trunk with a light-coloured smoothish bark, and form- 

 ing for the most part an umbrageous round-topped or spherical head. Leaves 

 opposite, broadly palmate, mostly large, but extremely unequal in size on diife- 

 rent pans of the same tree, usually as wide or even rather wider than long, often 

 8 or 9 inches broad and nearly as many deep, submembranaceous, plicately rugose 

 with depressed venation, somewhat glaucous beneath, with S ur 7 strong nearly 

 cylindrical ribs, mostly glabrous on both surfaces, except a few lufts of puliescence 

 in the axils of the ribs beneath, and along their sides near their point of union 

 with the petiole, more rarely downy all over, subcordate, rounded or almost trun- 

 cate at the base, .5-lobed, the intermediate clefts or sinuses acute ; lobes unequally 

 and variously dentato-serrate, the serraturcs coarsely and sharply but not deeply 

 cut, the two basal lubes usually much smaller and shallower than the three nearly 

 equal anterior ones, and sometimes almost obsolete, all more or less acute or acu- 

 minate, undivided, or at most slightly 3-lohed. Petioles various in length, from 

 about 2 to 5 or 6 inches, terete, those on the young shoots and suckers mostly of 

 a bright coral-red. Racemes terminal, from the axils of the ultimate pair of 

 leaves, and completely developed when the latter have attained their full size and 

 firmness, pendulous, somewhat compound at the base only, conico-cylindrical, 

 obtuse, from about 3 to 6 inches long, the common stalk or axis glabrous or hairy. 

 Flowers numerous, greenish, on patent slightly hairy pedicels of about 4 or 5 lines 

 in length and a little enlarged upwards, placed mostly 2, 3, or 4 together. Bracts 

 solitary at the base of the pedicels, minute, linear-lanceolate or subulate. Calyx 

 smooth externally, hairy within near the base, the segments oblong or sublinear, 

 obtuse. Petals similar to the calyx-segmenls but narrower. Stamens 8 — 12 

 (mostly 8), as long as or longer than the calyx ; filaments hairy in their lower 

 part ; anthers yellowish green. Style rather long ; stigmas flat, revolute, glandu- 

 loso-pilose, sometimes 3. Germen densely villous, often abortive, bionspidate 

 and 2-lobed, sometimes trilobate and tricuspidate. 



This tree is indigenous to Central and Southern Europe in mountain forests, 

 and I suspect in some upland districts of Britain (Mr. Winch considers it as truly 

 indigenous to the upland moors of Northumberland and Durham). A moist cool 

 atmosphere is most congenial to its growth, and it attains a very large size in the 

 Highlands and W. of Scotland, where the wood is much employed for bowls and 

 other articles of turnery. With us it se dom attains to great dimensions, but is 

 valuable from its power of withstanding the sea air, so detrimental to most other 

 trees. 



