248 LEAFtBtS. 



plants so well figured in European journals between 1794 and 

 1850, quite like that of Boccone of 1674, represent the real 

 A. androsaemifolium. It is certain that the original of the 

 1794 figure was derived from Nova Scotia, and it is next to 

 certain that the old Paris Garden plant came also from north- 

 eastern Canada. Moreover, the only plant which I in my 

 extensive travels have met with to match that of the figures 

 mentioned, I met with, and collected, in Nova Scotia ; though 

 I should almost expect to find it in extreme northern New 

 England . But that different phase, common enough in southern 

 New England and far westward, with few flowers, most of 

 which are axillary to large leaves, not even the few terminal 

 ones equalling the foliage — such plants, eastern and western, 

 whether of one species or an aggregate of several, are, like 

 that fine plant of Bigelow's plate, manifestly as species name- 

 less and nondescript. 



Some Californian Maples. 



For those smallest-leaved maples of California which have 

 hitherto been jumbled together under the name of Acer 

 macrophyllum, that appellation, as to its import is most un- 

 fortunate. It does not apply. The genuine A. macrophyllum, 

 belonging to the valley of the Columbia and regions northward 

 more than southward, with its leaves commonly ten inches 

 broad and long, and not rarely a foot across, and even more, 

 does not seem to have place in California at all, in any one of 

 California's many and distinct climatic and floral regions. It 

 may perchance some day be found in unexplored districts 

 northwestward in the State, and toward the sea ; but most 

 unlike that is every one of a number of its California allies, 

 each more or less localized — quite as in California species of 

 trees, shrubs and herbs are apt to be localized — for all but 

 one are furnished with leaves that make no kind of approach 

 to those of A . macrophyllum in size, and are as diverse in form 



