ACER PLATANOIDES, Norway Maple
- Acer platanoides, Linnæus, Sp. Pl. 1055 (1755); Loudon, Arb. et Frut. Brit. i. 408 (1838); Willkomm, Forstliche Flora, 757 (1887); Mathieu, Flore Forestière, 41 (1897).
A tree, attaining occasionally 90 feet in height, but usually smaller. Bark smooth on young trees, but ultimately becoming rough and fissured longitudinally. Young branchlets glabrous, not remaining green throughout the first year. Leaves (Plate 206, Fig. 11) averaging 5 inches long by 7 inches wide, five-lobed; lobes oblong with an acuminate bristle-pointed apex; sinuses wide, rounded and open, not reaching the middle of the leaf; base cordate; margin non-ciliate and with a few large sinuate pointed teeth; both surfaces shining, green, and glabrous, except for tufts of pubescence in the axils of the primary and secondary nerves beneath ; petiole with milky sap.
Flowers, opening early before the leaves expand, in erect corymbs, yellowish- green; the earliest mostly staminate, those opening later perfect ; stamens 8, as long as the sepals ; pedicels, calyx, corolla, filaments, and ovary glabrous. Fruit pendulous, on long stalks, glabrous ; keys about 1¾ inch long ; wings widely divergent.
In summer the Norway maple is readily distinguishable by the leaves shining on both surfaces, with long pointed lobes and teeth, and by the milky sap in the petioles. In winter the twigs are shining, glabrous, with very narrow three-dotted leaf-scars, the opposite pairs of which are joined at the ends around the stem. Terminal buds ⅓ inch long, sessile ; scales shining, either green at the base and reddish-brown above, or reddish-brown throughout, glabrous, ciliate. Lateral buds appressed to the stem.
Varieties
A large number of varieties have appeared in cultivation, of which the most noteworthy are :—
1. Var. laciniatum, Aiton,’ Eagle’s Claw or Hawk’s-foot Maple. Said by Loudon to have originated in the seed-bed. Leaves (Plate 205, Fig. 10) about half the size of the type, cuneate at the base; lobes acutely, deeply, and irregularly cut; margin rolled up. This variety usually attains to no great size, but Sir Hugh Beevor tells us of a tree at Gelderstone Hall near Beccles, Suffolk, 50 feet high by 2 feet 8 inches in girth; and Renwick in 1907 measured one at Auchendrane, Ayrshire, 48 feet by 3 feet 2 inches.
2, Var. dissectum, Jacquin fil. (var. palmatum, Koch *) (A. Lorbergi, Van Houtte). Leaves (Plate 206, Fig. 21) deeply cut to near the base, which is cordate ; lobes five, ending in long sharp points, the three upper lobes again divided into theee lobules; margin with a few sharp-pointed teeth, First introduced from Belgium in 1845 by Knight of Chelsea, it grows to be a fair-sized tree, and is worth cultivating on account of its elegantly cut foliage.
1 Hort. Kew, iii, 435 (1789).
2 Dendrologie, i. 530 (1869).
