[Acer.[L] Nat. Ord.—AceraceÆ; Linn. Octan. Monog.]

The Common Maple (A. campestre) is found throughout the middle states of Europe, and in the north of Asia. It is common in hedges and thickets in the middle and south of England, but is rare in the northern counties and in Scotland, and is not indigenous in Ireland. It is a rather small tree, of no great figure, so that it is seldom seen employed in any nobler service than in filling up a part in a hedge, in company with thorns and briers. In a few instances, where it is met with in a state of maturity, its form appears picturesque. It is not much unlike the oak, only it is more bushy, and its branches are closer and more compact. Although it seldom attains a height of more than twenty feet, yet in favourable situations it rises to forty feet, as may be seen in Eastwell Park, Kent, and in Caversham Park, near Reading. The Rev. William Gilpin, from whose Remarks on Forest Scenery we have derived much interesting matter, is buried under the shade of a very large Maple in the church-yard of Boldre, in the New Forest, Hampshire.

The botanical characters of A. campestre are:—Leaves about one and a half inch in width, downy while young, as are their foot-stalks, obtusely five-lobed, here and there notched, sometimes quite entire. Flowers green, in clusters that terminate the young shoots, hairy, erect, short, and somewhat corymbose. Anthers hairy between the lobes. Capsules downy, spreading horizontally, with smooth, oblong, reddish wings. Bark corky, and full of fissures; that of the branches smooth. Flowers in May and June.

The ancients held this tree in great repute. Ovid compares it to the Lime:

The Maple not unlike the lime-tree grows,
Like her, her spreading arms abroad she throws,
Well clothed with leaves, but that the Maple's bole
Is clad by nature with a ruder stole.

Pliny speaks as highly of its knobs and its excrescences, called the brusca and mollusca, as Dr. Plot does of those of the ash. The veins of these excrescences in the Maple, Pliny tells us, were so variegated that they exceeded the beauty of any other wood, even of the citron; though the citron was in such repute at Rome, that Cicero, who was neither rich nor expensive, was tempted to give 10,000 sesterces for a citron table. The brusca and mollusca, Pliny adds, were rarely of a size sufficient for the larger species of furniture, but in all smaller cabinet-work they were inestimable. Indeed, the whole tree was esteemed by the ancients on account of its variegated wood, especially the white, which is singularly beautiful. This is called the French Maple, and grows in northern Italy, between the Po and the Alps; the other has a curled grain, so curiously spotted, that it was called, from a near resemblance, the peacock's tail. So mad were people formerly in searching for the representations of birds, beasts, and other objects in the bruscum of this tree, that they spared no expense in procuring it.

The timber is used for musical instruments, inlaying, &c., and is reckoned superior to most woods for turnery ware. Our poets generally place a Maple dish in every hermitage they speak of.

Methinks that to some vacant hermitage
My feet would rather turn,—to some dry nook
Scooped out of living rock, and near a brook
Hurled down a mountain-cave, from stage to stage,
Yet tempering, for my sight, its bustling rage
In the soft haven of a translucent pool;
Thence creeping under forest arches cool,
Fit haunt of shapes whose glorious equipage
Would elevate my dreams. A beechen bowl,
A Maple dish, my furniture should be;
Crisp, yellow leaves my bed; the hooting owl
My night-watch; nor should e'er the crested fowl
From thorp or vil his matins sound for me,
Tired of the world and all its industry.
Wordsworth, Eccl. Sk., 22.

Wilson and Cowper also furnish the hermit's cell with a Maple dish, while Mason notes one that lacked this article, deemed so requisite for such a habitation:

—Many a visitant
Had sat within his hospitable cave;
From his Maple bowl, the unpolluted spring
Drunk fearless, and with him partook the bread
That his pale lips most reverently had blessed,
With words becoming such a holy man.
His dwelling a recess in some rude rock,
Books, beads, and Maple dish his meagre stock.
—It seemed a hermit's cell,
Yet void of hour-glass, skull, and Maple dish.

There is an American species of the Maple, A. saccharinum, which yields a considerable quantity of sap, from which the Canadians make sugar of an average quality. The season for tapping the trees is in February, March, and April. From a pint to five gallons of syrup may be obtained from one tree in a day; though, when a frosty night is succeeded by a dry and brilliant day, the rush of sap is much greater. The yearly product of sugar from each tree is about three pounds. Trees which grow in lone and moist places, afford a greater quantity of sap than those which occupy rising ground; but it is less rich in the saccharine principle. That of insulated trees, left standing in the middle of fields, or by the side of fences, is the best. It is also remarked, that in districts which have been cleared of other trees, and even of the less vigorous sugar maples, the product of the remainder is proportionally greater. The sap is converted into sugar by boiling, till reduced to the proper consistency for being poured into moulds.

There are now cultivated in England more than twenty species of Maple, brought from every quarter of the globe, several of which are likely to prove hardy. They are among the most ornamental trees of artificial plantations, on account of the great beauty and variety of their foliage, which changes to a fine scarlet, or rich yellow, in autumn. The larger growing species are often many years before they come to flower, and, after they do so, they sometimes flower several years before they mature seeds.