68 FAMILIAR TREES 
The Wild Service-tree (P. torminalis Ehrh.) occurs 
somewhat locally in woods and hedgerows in the 
southern and midland counties of England; but not 
in Scotland or Ireland. It is slow in growth, and 
seldom reaches any very considerable size. The 
bark is smooth and grey, and the twigs are stiff and 
sub-angular, reddish to purplish-brown in colour, 
and polished, though dotted with numerous small, 
pale cork-warts. The buds are blunt, and almost 
globular, polished and dry, those terminating the 
twigs being larger than the lateral ones, the scales 
being few in number, broad, short and green with 
narrow brown margins. 
The leaves, which are “conduplicate ” in the bud, 
are borne on slender stalks about half the length of 
their blades, and are of a very characteristic form, 
though, perhaps, sufficiently like those of the Plane 
to justify the comparison made by such an ancient 
and uncritical observer as Pliny. The blade is from 
two and a half to four and a half inches long, ovate- 
deltoid in general outline, very slightly heart-shaped 
at the base, and divided into seven, or sometimes 
five, triangular lobes. The lobing extends from a 
third to a half of the distance from the periphery to 
the midrib, and the lobes and their veins—the 
secondary ribs of the leaf as a whole—are arranged 
pinnately, though the basal secondary ribs, and con- 
sequently the basal pair of lobes, diverge at a larger 
angle from the main rachis than the rest, thus giving 
the leat a pseudo-palmate appearance. The lobes 
are sharply pointed, and the margins are irregularly 
serrate. The leaf-blade is firm and green on both 
