The Furze, Gorse or Whin, is a low, shrubby plant, common in barren soils throughout western Europe, and belonging to the natural order _leguminosæ_. The yellow flowers, covering broad tracts of untilled land, produce a brilliant and striking effect when in bloom. It is said that Linnæus, when he first saw them, fell on his knees with expressions of delight at their beauty, lamenting that the plant should be wanting in Sweden. It is occasionally cultivated in poor soils for fodder, as horses are fond of it, and the cattle are also fed with it in some parts of England, after it has been bruised in a sort of mill. In tracts of country where wood is scarce, it is frequently used by the cottagers for fuel. The pods of the Whin, or Furze, when ripe burst open with a loud crackling sound, which is described as pleasing, of a warm summer’s day. We Americans have no other acquaintance with the Furze than what is derived from books and prints. NOTE O. THE MAPLE, (_Acer campestre_,) p. 79. The common English Maple, _Acer campestre_, is wholly different from our own various species. It is a tree found throughout the greater part of Europe south of Scotland and Sweden, and is observed as far east as the Caucasus. In England, however, it is little more than a bush, or small tree of no great beauty, and whose wood is chiefly used for turning cups and bowls, such as hermits used in days when ballads were written about them. Its leaves are heart-shaped, with either two or five segments which are not serrated; its flowers are erect, in branching corymbs. In the southern Caucasus this maple is said to become a fine tree, the wood being in request for its hardness; and it is used for purposes less peaceful than the hermits bowl, being worked up into gun-stocks. The Sycamore-maple, _Acer pseudo-platanus_, is a very different tree, of noble growth, indigenous to southern Europe. This has been transplanted to England where it is much cultivated, and has been called the Sycamore from an erroneous notion that it is the same as the Sycamore of the east. Neither of these Maples will compare, for autumnal coloring, with those of our American woods. The true English Maple alluded to in the text, is described as “shifting its dress to ochery shades, then trying a deeper tint, and lastly assuming an orange vest.” This is pale indeed compared with the Rubens-like coloring of our native trees of the same family. The Maples are a very numerous and widely diffused tribe of trees. No less than thirty-four species are enumerated by botanists, belonging to different parts of the earth. NOTE P. AGARICS, page 85.