NORTH AMERICAN MAPLES- 89 



to review the principal literature of the genus Acer, in 

 the hope of naming the forms represented. As the con- 

 clusions reached were somewhat different from those of 

 recent writers on the genus, I have taken occasion to see 

 the contents of the principal herbaria of the country,* and 

 the results of my study are presented here as showing at 

 least the range of the forms and the great variability of 

 the eastern sugar maples. 



It is now commonly understood that the name Acer 

 saccharinum , which the common sugar maple has borne 

 until quite recently, was in reality given by Linnaeus in his 

 Species Plantarum ( 1753 ) to the silver maple ; f and the ten- 

 dency now is to restore this name to the plant it was origin- 

 ally applied to, notwithstanding the necessary confusion 

 for a time attending the change. Granting the propriety 

 and necessity of making this substitution, however, there 

 appears to be some difference of opinion as to the names 

 now to be adopted for the sugar maple and its forms. The 

 oldest other name generally admitted as pertaining to this 

 species, is A. saccharum of Marshall.} On the authority 

 of Pax and Schwerin, the Acer palmifolium of Borck- 

 hausen § is the same species. Later names for the common 

 sugar maple and the black maple are A. barbatum 



* My thanks are due Professor Britton of Columbia College, Dr. Co- 

 ville of the United States Department of Agriculture, Dr. Mohr of 

 Mobile, Dr. Robinson of Harvard University, and Professor Sargent of 

 the Arnold Arboretum, for the use of the material in their care. I am also 

 indebted to Mr. Marcus E. Jones of Salt Lake City, Dr. J. Schneck of 

 Mt. Carmel, Mr. Trevor Kincaid of Olympia, Wash., Mr. Geo. W. Let- 

 terman of Allenton, Mo., Mr. E. M. Wilcox and Mr. W. C. Werner of 

 Columbus, O., Mr. C. F. Wheeler of Lansing, Mich., and Mr. Thomas 

 Howell of Arthur, Oregon, for specimens collected or contributed for my 

 use. 



t For the history of this name see Sargent, Garden and Forest, iv. 

 148. 



% Arbustrum Americanum, 1785, 4. 



Catzenelnbogen, 1795, 109. — I am in- 



Professor 



■ 



not very certain that Borckhausen really meant a form of the sugar 

 maple. 



2 



