Page:TheTreesOfGreatBritainAndIreland vol03B.djvu/366

660 glabrous, remaining green throughout the first and second years. Leaves (Plate 205, Fig. 8) about 5 inches long by 54 inches wide; lobes five or three, with their apices pointing away from the base of the leaf and ending in long sharp points; margin repand, non-ciliate ; upper surface dark green, shining, glabrous ; lower surface light green, dull, glabrous except for pubescent tufts in the axils of the nerves; petiole with milky sap.

Flowers smaller than those of A. platanoides, in corymbs. Fruit, glabrous, with horizontally spreading wings, each key about an inch long.

A variety with deeply-cut leaves is described by Tenore; but it is not apparently in cultivation.

This species is readily distinguished by the pyramidal habit, striped bark, and glaucous shoots. It grows in woods in the mountains around the Bay of Naples, and according to Spach’? is also found in the mountains of Calabria.

Acer Lobelit, which Loudon treats as a variety of the Norway maple, is so distinct in its habit of growth and in its bark that it is well worth cultivation. The largest we have seen in England is at Grayswood, a handsome tree with erect branches about 4o feet high. It is quite hardy as far north as Yorkshire, where Sir Charles Strickland has planted a good many which are now from 25 to 40 feet high and growing vigorously. They all have an erect, fastigiate habit. There are two good specimens in Kew Gardens. A large tree was reported? to be growing in 1839 at Croome Court, near Worcester; but when this place was visited by us in 1905, it could not be found.

At Verriéres, near Paris, in M. P. de Vilmorin’s grounds, this tree has attained 55 feet in height by 5 feet in girth.

A tree attaining 60 feet in height; bark smooth, usually striped with white lines or bands. Young branchlets green, glabrous, not glaucous except in one variety, remaining green and smooth in the second year in some varieties, becoming grey or brown with irregular fissures in others. Leaves (Plate 205, Fig. 9), averaging 4 inches long and 4½ inches broad, cordate at the base, entire in margin ; lobes long, cuspidate or caudate-acuminate, bristle-pointed, five or seven in number

1 Ann. Soc. Nat. 2 sér, ii. 168 (1834). Cf. also Tenore, Essai Géog. Roy. Naples, 81 (1827). ? Loudon, Gard. Mag. 1840, p. 44.