THE SYCAMORE 157 



are often of a clear blood-red tint, which in early 

 spring is well contrasted with the delicate green of 

 the spreading fans of foliage ; for, like many leaves in 

 which the veins are arranged " palmately," i.e. radiat- 

 ing like the fingers of the hand, " the broad leaves of 

 the Sycamore " are folded in the bud like the feuille 

 of a fan, or, as botanists term it, in a " plicate " manner. 

 These leaves are from four to eight inches across, 

 greyish on their under surfaces, and divided into five 

 pointed lobes, with a margin toothed with rounded 

 serratures. The principal veins are prominent on the 

 lower surface of the leaf ; and in autumn, either before 

 or after they have fallen, the leaves are very 

 commonly blotched over, as if with large blots of ink, 

 owing to the attacks of a parasitic fungus, known as 

 Rhytis'ma, or Xylo'ma, aceri'num. This also attacks 

 other Maples, and is decidedly unsightly. 



In May or June the Sycamore bears long pendulous 

 racemes of small green flowers, each having generally 

 six or eight sepals, and as many petals and stamens, 

 the two latter whorls inserted on the edge of a ring- 

 shaped, fleshy disc, on which rises the ovary. This 

 latter is hairy, and has two curved stigmas, whilst it 

 further foreshadows the form of the fruit in two 

 humps like those on the shoulders in a fashionable 

 lady's mantle. As in other trees of the Maple group, 

 the flowers are not all " perfect," some being " male," 

 i.e. having no pistil. Hence the number of fruits 

 hanging in an autumnal cluster is far smaller than the 

 number of the summer's blossoms. When two or 

 three kinds of flowers — hermaphrodite, and staminate, 

 or pistillate, or all three— occur in one inflorescence 



