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felled trees two hundred years old, and upwards of one hundred feet in height, the timber of which was perfectly sound.

In France and Germany, the wood of the sycamore is much sought after by wheelwrights, cabinet-makers, turners, sculptors in wood, manufacturers of musical instruments, and especially of violins, and makers of toys, and other small wares. The roots, which are often beautifully veined, and the stools or stumps where the plant has long been treated as a bush, and cut periodically as coppice-wood, is eagerly sought after for curious cabinet-work, and for inlaying. The wood is used for pestles, for tables, rollers, spoons, plates, and other household articles; it is also used for gun-stocks, and in every kind of structure, whether under water or in the air. The leaves, gathered green, and dried, form an excellent forage for sheep, during the winter. The sap has been drawn from the trees in Germany, and various experiments made upon it. At first, it is as clear as water, and sweet; but, after it has flowed from the tree for some time, and begins to run slowly, it takes a whitish colour, and becomes sweeter, and of a thicker consistence; though it contains less sugar than that of the first flowing. The proportion of sugar produced by the sap varies. Sometimes an ounce of sugar from a quart of liquor has been obtained; but, generally not so much. The variations depend upon the age of the tree, the vigour of its growth, the nature of the soil, the temperature of the season, and a number of other circumstances, of which little is known.

In Britain, the uses to which the sycamore is applied are much less varied than in France and Germany. It is used by joiners, turners, cabinet-makers, musical instrument makers; for cheese and cider presses, and sometimes for gunstocks. It is also extensively used, when of sufficient size, for machinery, in printing and bleaching works, for beetling-beams, and in foundries for making patterns, &c. In the western Highlands of Scotland, it is said that the sap of this tree is made into wine.

As an underwood, the sycamore shoots freely from the stool to an age of eighty or one hundred years. As a timber-tree, it is most advantageously felled at the age of eighty years, or from that age to one hundred.

As an ornamental tree, it produces the best effect, either singly, in groups of two or three, placed sufficiently near to form a whole, but not so as to touch each other; or planted in rows in avenues. Its picturesque beauties are thus described by Sir T. D. Lauder. "The spring tints of the sycamore are rich, tender, glowing, and harmonious; in summer its deep-green hue accords well with its grand and massive form, and the brown, and dingy reds of its autumnal tints harmonize well with the mixed grove, to which they give a fine depth of tone."

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Derivations. The specific name, circinatum, is derived from the Latin circino, to roll, having reference to the manner of the rolling of the leaves. The European names are translations of the botanical one."

Engravings. Nuttall, North American Sylva, pl. -; Hooker, Flora Boreali Americana, pl. 39; Loudon, Arboretum Britannicum, i., figures 112, et 127, in p. 454; and the figures below.

Specific Characters. Leaves orbicular, rather cordate at the base, 7-lobed, smooth on ooth surfaces, lobes acutely toothed; nerves and veins hairy at their origins.-Don, Miller's Dict

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Description.

HE Acer circinatum, in its native country, attains a height of twenty to forty feet. The branches are slender, pendulous, and crooked; often taking root in the manner of those of many species of ficus, and sometimes of the linden-tree. The bark is smooth, green when young, and whitish when fully grown. The leaves, which are about the size of those of the Acer rubrum, are membraneous, heart-shaped, with seven to nine lobes, and the same number of nerves. They are smooth above, except hairs in the axils of the nerves, when young, but glabrous when older, and downy beneath, with the axils of the nerves woolly. The lobes are ovate, acute, and sharply serrated; the sinuses are acute, the foot-stalks rather short, from which radiate the nerves to the tip of each

lobe. The flowers, which appear in April and May, are of a middling size, and occur on nodding corymbs, with long peduncles. The fruit has thin, straight wings, which are so divaricate as to form right angles with the peduncle. This species is very marked, and may readily be distinguished by the regular form of its leaves, and their pale, reddish-green colour.

Geography and History. This tree is common along the west coast of North America, between the forty-third and forty-ninth degrees of latitude, and is particularly abundant on the great rapids of the river Columbia. Like the Acer macrophyllum, it is exclusively confined to the woody, mountainous country that skirts the shores, and there forms, among the pine forests, almost impenetrable thickets.

This species was sent to England in 1827, by the late unfortunate Douglass, from the north-west coast. It has since been cultivated in the London Horticultural Society's garden; and also at Messrs. Loddiges' nursery. At High Clere, in Berkshire, England, there was a plant in 1835, which had flowered, and ripened seeds. Since that period, the species has gradually been disseminated in the principal gardens of Europe.

Properties, Uses, &c. The wood of the Acer circinatum is fine, white, and close-grained, very tough, and susceptible of a good polish. From the slender branches, the native tribes, along the river Columbia, make the hoops of their scoop-nets, which they employ for taking the salmon at the rapids, and the contracted parts of that stream. The soil and situation, propagation and culture of this species, may be safely relied on, as being the same as those of the Acer macrophyllum.

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Derivations. The specific name, eriocarpum, is derived from the Greek erion, cotton, and carpos, fruit, in allusion to the down which grows on the fruit. The name dasycarpum, is also from the Greek, and signifies woolly-fruited.

Engravings. Michaux, North American Sylva, pl. 40; Loudon, Arboretum Britannicum, i., figure 129; p. 456, et v., pl. 37; and the figures below.

Specific Characters. Leaves truncate at the base, smooth and glaucous beneath, palmately 5-lobed, with blunt recesses, and unequally and deeply-toothed lobes. Flowers conglomerate, on short pedicels, apetalous, pentandrous. Ovaries downy.-Don, Miller's Dict.

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Description.

HE Acer eriocarpum, in favourable situations, attains a height of thirty to fifty feet, with a trunk from two to four feet in diameter; but on the banks of some of the western rivers, trees may be found of a diameter of eight or nine feet. The trunk is low, and divides itself into a great number of branches, so divergent, that Michaux says, "they form a head more spacious, in proportion to the size of the trunk, than that of any other tree with which I am acquainted." The flowers, which appear in March, April or May, are of a palepink, or pale-yellowish purple, small and sessile, with a downy ovarium. The fruit is larger than that of any other species growing east of the Rocky Mountains. It consists of two capsules, joined at the base, each of which

encloses a globular seed, and is terminated by a membraneous falciform wing, from two to three inches long. In Pennsylvania, it is ripe early in May, and a month earlier in Carolina and Georgia. At this period of growth, the leaves, which have attained half their size, are very downy beneath; a month later, when fully grown, they are perfectly smooth, and are as broad as they are long. They are opposite, and supported by long petioles, and are divided by deep sinuses into four lobes. They are toothed on the edges, are of a bright-green on the upper surface, and of a beautiful white beneath. The foliage, however, is

scattered, and leaves an open passage for the sunbeams. According to Dr. Hooker, the young leaves, and germs, are very downy; but the old leaves, and perfect fruit, are glabrous.

Geography and History. The banks of the river Sorel, in Lower Canada, in latitude forty-five degrees, may be considered as the northern, and those of the tributaries of the Penobscot, in the state of Maine, as the eastern limit of the Acer eriocarpum. But, like many other trees, it is stunted by the rigorous winters of these latitudes, and never reaches the size which it attains a few degrees farther south. It is found on the banks of all the rivers which flow from the Alleghanies to the ocean; though it is less common along those which water the southern parts of the Carolinas and Georgia. In no part of the United States is it more multiplied than in the country west of the mountains, and nowhere is its vegetation more luxuriant than on the banks of the Ohio, and on those of the streams which flow into it. There, sometimes alone, and at others mingled with the willow, which is also found along all these waters, it contributes singularly, by its magnificent foliage, to the embellishment of the scene. "The brilliant white of the leaves beneath, forms a striking contrast with the bright-green above, and the alternate reflection of the two surfaces in the water, heightens the beauty of this wonderful moving mirror, and aids in forming an enchanting picture; which," says Michaux, “during my long excursions in a canoe in these regions of solitude and silence, I contemplated with unwearied admiration.” "Beginning at Pittsburg," continues he, "and even some miles above the junction of the Alleghany and Monongahela Rivers, white maples, with short trunks, twelve or fifteen feet in circumference, are continually to be met with at short distances."

The Acer eriocarpum was introduced into England by Sir Charles Wagner, in 1725, and has since been in general cultivation throughout Europe, for orna

ment.

The largest tree of this species in the neighbourhood of London, is at Kew, where, in twenty-five years after planting, it had attained the height of fifty feet. At Trentham, in Staffordshire, there is another tree mentioned by Loudon, of the same height.

At Pfauen Insel, in Prussia, there is an Acer eriocarpum, which, at the age of forty years, had attained the height of fifty feet. And another is recorded, as growing in the garden of Christianholme, near Lolland, in Sweden, of the height of forty feet. And another of still more rapid growth, at Niedzwiedz, in Poland, which had attained the height of thirty-six feet in twenty years.

Insects. The Acer eriocarpum is chiefly preyed upon by the larvæ of the Apatela americana, of Harris, and by those of several species of the Geometridæ, all of which feed with more or less avidity on the leaves of various other maples, the elm, chesnut, and probably many other trees.

Soil, Situation, &c. In its natural habitat, the Acer eriocarpum is found in a sandy loam, on the banks of such rivers only as have limpid waters, with a gravelly bed; and it is seldom, if ever, found in swamps and other wet grounds enclosed in forests, where the soil is black and miry. When cultivated, this tree requires a deep, free soil, and more moisture than most of the other species. Though it will not grow in swamps, yet it attains its greatest dimensions on the alluvial banks of rivers which are occasionally inundated. It ripens its seeds, both in Europe and in the United States, by midsummer, or earlier; and if these are immediately sown, they come up, and produce plants, which are eight or ten inches high, by the succeeding autumn.

Properties and Uses. The wood of the Acer eriocarpum is very white when newly cut, and of a fine texture; but it is softer and lighter than that of any other maple in the United States; and from the want of strength and durability it is little used. When dry, it weighs thirty-eight pounds to a cubic foot, and

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