Remarkable Trees
The only trees which we know to exceed 50 feet in height are two at Arley Castle, which Mr. Woodward measured in 1905—one 57 feet by 5 feet 1 inch at 5 feet from the ground, and the other 56 feet by 7 feet near the base, where it divides into two stems. The one which I figure (Plate 189) is growing in Sir Hugh Beevor’s park at Hargham, Norfolk, and when I saw it in 1905 was 45 feet by 7½ feet with a bole of about 7 feet. There is a tree in Kew Gardens, not far from the Director's office, which is 45 feet high, by 5 feet 10 inches in girth at two feet from the ground, dividing at four feet up into four or five stems. Lord Ducie’s tree at Tortworth, not more than forty or fifty years old, is 4o feet by 6 feet- There is a younger one almost as large at Grayswood.
In Scotland the only large one we know is at Smeaton-Hepburn, East Lothian, measured by Henry in 1905 as 45 feet high by 6 feet 3 inches in girth.
At Glasnevin, Dublin, a tree measures 46 feet by 7½ feet; and another at Glenstal, near Limerick, was 47 feet by 4 feet in 1905.
Timber
The wood is said by Mouillefert’ to be like that of the sycamore, but pinkish or pale red in colour, closer in the grain, heavier, and more lustrous, and is esteemed in France by turners, cabinetmakers, and wheelwrights. (H.J.E.)
ACER MONSPESSULANUM, Montpellier Maple
- Acer monspessulanum, Linnæus, Sp. Pl. 1056 (1753); Loudon, Arb. et Frut. Brit. i. 427 (1838); Willkomm, Forstliche Flora, 769 (1887); Mathieu, Flore Forestière, 43 (1897).
- Acer trifolium, Duhamel, Traité des Arbres, i. t. 10 (1755).
- Acer trilobatum, Lamarck, Encycl. ii. 382 (1786).
- Acer trilobum, Moench, Meth. 56 (1794).
- Acer rectangulum, Dulac, Fl. Haut. Pyr. 242 (1867).
A small tree, in the wild state rarely attaining 40 feet, and often only a shrub. Bark smooth on young trees, ultimately fissuring. Young branchlets glabrous, green, becoming dark brown in the first autumn. Leaves (Plate 207, Fig. 31) coriaceous, small, averaging 1¼ inch long and 2¼ inches broad, cordate at the base, three lobed; lobes ovate, obtuse; sinuses wide, acute at the base; margin non- ciliate, usually entire, rarely toothed ; upper surface dark green, shining, glabrous ; lower surface pale or greyish, with tufts of pubescence in the axils at the base, else- where glabrous ; petiole without milky sap.
Flowers, appearing before or with the leaves, in small corymbs, at first erect, afterwards pendulous, yellowish-green; pedicels long. Fruit, ripening in
1 Essences Forestières, 206 (1903).
