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Japanese Maples

I have said that Japan is the ancestral home of the maples. Two-thirds of the forest trees in the islands to-day belong to the genus Acer. The artistic and skilful Japanese gardeners have green on both sides. A broken petiole or growing shoot exudes a milky juice. The flowers are yellow, in flat clusters, followed by thin, paired samaras whose wings spread in opposite directions. As the flowers open after the leaves, the samaras are late in ripening, and they germinate the following spring. Seeds of this species may be gathered and shipped without losing their vitality, as do the two "soft maples."

The Norway maple has proved itself an exceptionally good species for the Middle West. In any region, it holds its leaves much later than other maples, which is a strong argument in its favour, for they are still perfect when they fall.

There was a time in Rome's luxurious days when men went mad over tables made of curly maple. Not of the sycamore maple, the standard hardwood of Europe to-day, but of the lesser maple, Acer campestris, the maple of the field. It out-ranked even the precious Arrah, or citron-wood, in popularity among the imperial "smart set." The best trees grew on the nether slopes of the Alps; and the curly wood came from trees disfigured with knobs and swellings. There were two kinds: one, dark, which came in logs large enough to saw into tables; the other, white, far more beautiful, but always in such small-sized pieces that only curious and dainty articles could be made of it. Often it was worked down so thin that when polished it was transparent, and showed its beautiful patterns as if they were in a pane of glass.

"The Pavonaceous maple" was that rare grain whose elegant curls and undulations imitated the eyes of a peacock's tail. Workers in maple wood ranked with jewellers and goldsmiths. They made tables with the most beautiful colours and patterns revealed by their polished tops. For such a table Cicero paid ten thousand sesterces. It showed curious "spots and maculations" in the natural grain which imitated the colours and shapes of tigers and panthers! One of the Ptolemies had a circular table three inches thick and four feet and a half in diameter for which he gave its weight in gold! Fifteen hundred thousand sesterces--$60,000--paid by this emperor for a single table, probably represents the limit to which this extravagance was carried.

A common phrase, which we use without understanding its meaning, originated at this time. The women matched their husbands in lavish expenditures. "When the men at any time reproached their wives for their wanton extravagance in pearl and other rich trifles, they were wont to retort, and turn the tables upon their husbands." Evelyn, from whom I quote, makes this statement on the authority of Pliny.