Part 11

Ash tree flowers have no petals and no sepals; they have only a green, bottle-shaped seed-vessel (7), which stands between two stamens with pale green stalks and fat purple-coloured heads. Sometimes there is not even a seed-vessel; you may find nothing but a crowded bunch of purply stamens. This latter kind of Ash tree cannot produce any fruit.

In a few weeks these stamens shrivel and the purple heads fall off. The seed-vessels, too, become very different. They change into long flat green wings, which hang each from its own stalk in a cluster at the end or from the side of the branch. These silky green wings are called “keys” (3), or in some places, “spinners”; at one end they are notched, and at the other, close to the stalk, lies the fruit. Long after the Ash tree leaves are withered and fallen you can see these bunches of “keys,” grown brown and shrivelled, still clinging to the branches. When wintry weather comes they are torn off by the wind, and the winged seed, spinning round and round in the air, is carried a long distance.

You will see Ash trees growing high up on rocky precipices, where only the birds or the wind could have left the seed.

By the month of May, when the keys of the Ash are fully formed, the green leaves (2) begin to appear. They are beautiful feathery leaves, full of lightness, and grace, and strength. Each leaf is made up of from four to eleven pairs of leaflets, shaped like a lance, with toothed edges, and these are placed opposite each other on a central stalk: there is nearly always a single leaflet at the end. The leaves are pale green, and when they first open you see a soft browny down on the leaf ribs, but this soon wears off. They droop gracefully from the twigs, which you can now see require to be stout and strong to carry such large wind-tossed feathers.

But the Ash tree leaves are among the first to fall. Whenever the cold winds come they wither, and a single night of frost will strew them in hundreds on the ground. Where the leaf stalk joined the twig you will see a curious scar (5) shaped like a horse-shoe, and next year a black bud will appear inside this scar. The Ash tree will live for several hundred years. It is not fully grown up till it is forty or fifty years old, and till then you will not find any bunches of keys, with their seeds, growing on the tree.

THE FIELD MAPLE

1. Field Maple in Autumn 2. Leaf Spray 3. Flower Spike 4. Fruit]

Notice that the ground beneath the branches of the Ash tree is usually bare. Many of its roots spread out to a great distance close below the surface, and they are so greedy, and require so much nourishment for the tree, that there is none left for other plants. Some farmers think that the raindrops which drip from the feathery Ash leaves are hurtful to other plants, so they are unwilling to plant Ash trees in their fields and hedgerows.

The wood of the Ash is very valuable, and will bring as much money as that of the Oak or Elm. It is used for all kinds of work--for furniture and for ship-building, and for making wheels and poles, and it lasts well and does not readily split.

PLATE X

THE FIELD MAPLE

There are many mistakes made in naming the Maple and Plane trees. The Sycamore or False Plane tree, the Oriental Plane, and the Field Maple are often called wrongly by each other’s names. So you must note carefully the differences between them. The Sycamore and the Field Maple are cousins, but the Oriental Plane is not even a distant relation of these, and only resembles them in the shape of its leaves. It is not really difficult to distinguish one from the other.

The Field Maple (1) is nearly always a small tree which you find growing in the hedgerows, where it is more like a large bush than a tree. You rarely find it standing alone in a wide park, bearing great branches heavily clothed with leaves, as you find the Sycamore or Great Maple. In England it is a common hedgerow tree, but it is not native to Scotland and is seldom found there.

Early in spring you find the long slender shoots covered with buds, from which burst small leaves of a beautiful bright crimson colour. These leaves (2) are toothed round the edges and are shaped like a hand with five short fingers; in the Field Maple the fingers are blunt at the points, not sharp as are those of the Sycamore and of the Oriental Plane.

As the spring advances those pretty crimson leaves become dark green above and a light green on the under-side, and they lose the soft down which covered them, but even when fully out they are never so large as those of the Sycamore. When autumn draws near, with its cold winds and frosty nights, the Field Maple leaves change colour once more and become brilliant yellow; you will see them shining in the hedgerows like a bush of gold.

Many of the leaves are disfigured by small red spots, and if you look at one of these spots with a magnifying-glass you will see that is caused by a tiny insect which has made this little red nest in which to lay its eggs.

The leaves of the Field Maple, like those of the Sycamore, are placed opposite each other on the twig; in the Oriental Plane they grow alternately, one a little way above the other on opposite sides of the spray. There is a great deal of sugary juice in Maple leaves, and cattle love to eat them. In some countries they are stripped from the trees and kept for winter fodder for the cows.

The bark of the Field Maple is noted for its strange corky nature and its curious growth. It grows in upright ridges, deeply furrowed, which look as if they could easily be broken off. In the Oriental Plane the bark is quite smooth, and it peels off in large flakes, leaving patches of different colours on the tree trunk.

In April, when the leaves are still unfolding, the Field Maple brings out its spikes of flowers (3). You will at once notice that these flower clusters stand erect, and do not droop in pointed tassels like those of the Sycamore. Now, look at the flowers in an Oriental Plane, and you will discover that they bear no resemblance either to those of the Sycamore or of the Field Maple, with which it is often confused. They do not even grow in clusters, but in round, prickly balls which are threaded on a slender green chain.

The flowers of the Field Maple are what botanists call “perfect flowers,” which means that each flower has all its parts complete within itself. In every bloom you will find five narrow green sepals and five narrow green petals; within the ring of petals stand eight yellow-headed stamens, and seated in the centre of the flower is a seed-vessel with a small wing at each side and with two curly horns standing up at the top. There is plenty of honey juice hidden among these stamens, and the bees buzz all day long around the Maple blossoms.

As the season advances, the petals and sepals and stamens fall off, but the seed-vessel grows larger and larger, till you find bunches of winged seeds (4) standing erect where the flowers once grew.

Notice that in this tree the seeds are close together beside the stalk, and that the wings stand straight out from the seeds and are not bent into the shape of the letter U, as they are in the Sycamore. These bunches of winged seeds are frequently tinged with bright crimson, and are very attractive among the glossy green leaves.

In autumn the strong winds strip them from their stalks and the wings bear the seed far from the parent tree. Some botanists tell us that these seeds require to lie in the ground for more than a year before they begin to grow.

THE SYCAMORE

1. Sycamore Tree 2. Leaf Spray 3. Fat Bud 4. Flower Spike 5. Winged Fruit]

The Field Maple is full of sugary sap, but nothing is made of it in this country, as the trees do not yield enough to make it worth while. But in Canada the sap is drawn from the trees and made into sugar. I am sure you must have seen the brown blocks of Maple sugar in the confectioners’ windows.

The wood of the Field Maple is too small to be of much use, but it is strangely and beautifully marked and veined with spots and stripes like the skin of a tiger or panther, and is eagerly bought for decorative purposes. The knots that grow on the roots were said to be worth their weight in gold, and in old history books you read that the thrones of great kings were made of Maple. Nowadays the wood is largely used for making small articles such as plates, and cups, and trays, and it can be cut so thin without breaking that the light may be seen through it.

In France the long slender Maple shoots are used for coachmen’s whips.