occasionally short and broad. Fruit-wings erect and parallel or diverging only at an acute angle. Introduced by Maries in 1881.
- 6. Var. Mono (A. Mono, Maximowicz). Japan, Saghalien, Amurland, Manchuria, Northern and Central China.
- Differs from the last in the wings of the fruit diverging at about a right angle. Introduced! from Central China by Wilson in 1901. Plants at Coombe Wood are about 6 feet high.
*** Young branchlets glaucous.
- 7. Var. Mayri (A. Mayri, von Schwerin). Yezo. This differs from var. eu-pictum in the young branchlets being glaucous. Mayr, who discovered the tree in 1886, says that the bark is almost white in colour and hard and smooth. Apparently not yet introduced.
Acer pictum is widely distributed, occurring from Asia Minor through the Caucasus and the Himalayas to China, Manchuria, and Japan. In Asia Minor it is met with in the mountains near Trebizond, where, as in the Caucasus, it grows in mixed forests and beech woods, ascending from sea-level to 5600 feet. It has been collected in Armenia and in the Elburz Mountains of Northern Persia. According to Gamble,’ it is the commonest maple in the Western Himalaya, but extends throughout the middle and outer ranges from the Indus to Assam, where it grows as a moderate-sized tree with thin grey bark at elevations ranging from 4000 to gooo feet. The wood is used in India for construction, ploughs, bedsteads, and carrying-poles; and the Tibetan drinking cups are turned from the knotty excrescences which are often found on this tree.* Further east the tree is spread throughout the mountains of Western China in the provinces of Yunnan, Szechwan, and Hupeh; and it is found northward in the province of Chihli and throughout Manchuria. It also grows in the island of Saghalien, and is the most common and largest species of maple in Japan, where, according to Sargent,’ it is one of the most abundant trees in Hokkaido, occasionally attaining a height of 50 feet and a girth of 5 feet. Elwes, however, saw none as large as this. The tree is beautiful in May, when the flowers are just opening, as the large lengthened inner scales of the winter buds are then bright orange-yellow, and very showy. The autumnal colour of the leaves is described as yellow and red,
This species is usually seen in England as a small tree in botanic gardens and public parks, var. colchicum rubrum appearing to be the commonest variety in cultivation, the form from Japan being very rare. The finest trees we have seen are two at Tortworth, one of which is 49 feet high, and 5½ feet in girth, with a very spreading top 45 to 50 paces round, and many suckers from the roots with reddish leaves. Another in the park, is grafted on A. platanoides, and has very
1 Journ. Roy. Hort. Soc. xxix, 348, ff. 87, 89 (1904).
2 Indian Timbers, 202 (1902).
3 Hooker in Himalayan Journals, i. 132, 133, says that some of these cups are supposed to be antidotes against poison, and fetch a very high price. The knotty excrescences are produced on the roots of oaks, maples, and other mountain forest trees in the Himalaya by a parasitical plant known as Balanophora.
4 Forest Flora of Japan, 29 (1894).
