Acer,] XXI. ACERACE^. 97 



Flowers on short, loose, erect corymbs. Wings of the car 



pels diverging horizontally .... , Li, campestre. 



Flowers in pendulous racemes. Wings of the carpels erect, 



or slightly diverging 2. A. Pseudo-platanug. 



The Norway Maple, A.platanoides, and A. monspessulanum from eastern 

 or southern Europe, the sugar Maple (A. saccharatum,) from North 

 America, and some other exotic true Maples, besides the ash-leaved 

 Maple, forming the genus Negundo, from North America, may be met 

 with in our parks and plantations. 



1. A. campestre, Linn. (fig. 221). Common M. — When full-grown, a 

 rather handsome, round-headed, though not very tall tree, with a dense 

 dark-green foliage, but, as it is of slow growth and flowers when young, 

 it is often seen as a small scraggy tree, or mere bush, in our hedges. 

 Leaves on slender stalks, 2 to 3 inches broad, divided to about the 

 middle into 5 broad, usually obtuse lobes, entire or sinuate, glabrous 

 above, often downy underneath. Flowers few, on slender pedicels, in 

 loose, erect corymbs, shorter than the leaves. Carpels downy or rarely 

 glabrous, the wings spreading horizontally, so as to form together one 

 straight line. 



In European woods, extending eastward to the Caucasus, and north- 

 ward to southern Sweden. In Britain, abundant in southern England, 

 and apparently truly indigenous as far north as Cheshire and the 

 Tyne, rare in the wild state in Ireland. Fl. spring. 



2. A. Pseudo-plat anus, Linn. (fig. 222). Sycamore. — A much hand- 

 somer and freer-growing tree than A. campestre, the leaves larger, with 

 more pointed and toothed lobes, not unlike those of a Plane-tree. 

 Flowers in loose, oblong, hanging racemes. Wings of the carpels 

 nearly parallel, or diverging so as to form a right angle, not spreading 

 into one straight line. 



A native of the mountains of central Europe and western Asia, 

 naturalised in Britain. Fl. spring. 



XXII. AQUIFOLIAOE^. THE HOLLY FAMILY. 



A small Order, widely spread over the globe, limited in 

 Britain to a single genus, from which the few exotic ones 

 differ slightly in the number of parts of the flower and fruit. 

 They nearly all approach Celastracece, but have the petals 

 usually very shortly united into a monopetalous corolla., and 

 the stamens inserted on its base, without any fleshy disk round 

 the ovary. 



I. ILEX. HOLLY. 



Shrubs or trees, with alternate leaves, and small flowers in axillary 

 clusters. Calyx of 4 or rarely 5 small teeth. Corolla regular, deeply 

 divided into as many segments or petals. Stamens as many, inserted on 

 the corolla, and alternating with its segments. Ovary sessile, 4-celled, 

 with one pendulous ovule in each cell, and crowned by 4 minute sessile 

 stigmas. Fruit a berry, or rather a small drupe, including 4 stones or 

 nuts, each containing a single seed. 



The species are numerous in the warmer parts of the northern hemi- 



G 



