Page:Wayside and Woodland Blossoms.djvu/276

135 five-lobed, unequally toothed. Flowers, greenish-yellow, May and June. Samaras large, wings diverging. Native of Mid-Europe and Western Asia.

The False Sycamore or Norway Maple (A. platanoides) is the species shown in our figure. It is a native of Europe, introduced to England in 1683. It is a considerable-sized tree, attaining a height of about sixty feet. Its leaves are heart-shaped in outline, five-lobed, sharply pointed, with a few large sharp teeth. The flowers appear in April and May; bright yellow. The samaras are brown, the wings widely diverging.

Acer is the old Roman name for the Maple.

The False Acacia, Common Acacia, Robinia, or Locust-tree, as it is variously styled, is a native of mountain forests in North America, attaining its greatest perfection in Kentucky and Tennessee, where it attains the height of ninety feet and a diameter of four feet. It has been grown in this country for two hundred and fifty years, it being one of the earliest trees introduced from the New World, its graceful habit and light pinnate leaves commending it as an ornamental tree for the plantation. In the United States it is in great repute as an ornament, a shade or a timber-tree; it grows with great rapidity, and its timber is of great durability, so that our cousins use it largely for ship-building, railway sleepers, and fences. When William Cobbett visited the States he was greatly struck with the useful nature of this tree, and on his return to England spared no pains to make its virtues known to his countrymen, even starting a nursery for the purpose of supplying the young trees, and creating quite a rage for Locust-planting for several years.

The leaves are long, compound, the leaflets being arranged in a pinnate manner, with an odd leaflet. The stipules are in the form of prickles at the base of the leaf-stalk. It is a