The generic name, _Tilia_, is that by which the Romans knew the tree.
=Tree of the Gods= (_Ailantus glandulosa_).
This elegant shade-tree was introduced from North China in 1751, and brought its name with it--Ailanto, or Tree of the Gods. It has, however, been better appreciated in France and Italy than in this country. It grows to a height of fifty or sixty feet. The leaves are compound, pinnate, a fact that might easily be overlooked, for the whole leaf is so large--sometimes as much as six feet in length--that its stalk and mid-rib might well be mistaken for a branch clothed with opposite leaves. The leaflets are toothed, and the teeth bear glands on the lower side, whence the specific name. Its flowers, which open in August, are borne in clusters at the end of the branches. They are small, greenish-white in colour, and give off an evil odour. There are two forms of flowers, the one consisting of a five-parted calyx, five petals, and ten stamens; the other with calyx and petals the same, but fewer stamens and three, four, or five ovaries. The flowers are not represented in our illustration, the drawing having been made when the tree was in fruit. These will be seen to look like small imitations of ash-keys. It is a rapid grower in almost any soil, though it succeeds best in a light humid earth, and appreciates a little shelter. Its leaves are the favourite food of one of the large silk-producing moths (_Attacus cynthia_), but most other insects disapprove of it.
Our English Maple is the Common or Small-leaved or Field Maple (_Acer campestre_) that grows wild in hedge-rows and thickets in England and Wales, but is only naturalized in Scotland. It is a small spreading tree, scarcely exceeding twenty feet in height, with leaves five-lobed, the lobes again lobed or toothed. The flowers are small, green, in corymbs, with narrow sepals and narrower petals, succeeded by two-winged two-seeded fruits called _samaras_; the wings being horizontal. Flowers May and June.
The Great Maple or Sycamore (_A. pseudo-platanus_) is a tree commonly grown in the streets, squares, and parks of London and other great cities on account of its smoke-enduring qualities. It has been so long established here that it is generally but erroneously regarded as a native. It is a tree of very rapid growth, and attains a height of about eighty feet; living upwards of two hundred years. Leaves large, five-lobed, unequally toothed. Flowers, greenish-yellow, May and June. Samaras large, wings diverging. Native of Mid-Europe and Western Asia.