496 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



the persons engaged in the operation, it is ordinarily much 

 cleaner than the foreign muscovado sugars, which are prepared 

 usually by persons stupid and unclean, in the midst of insects 

 and of decaying vegetation. It is desirable, therefore, that its 

 product should be increased; especially as it is made at a sea- 

 son of the year not occupied by other rustic employments, and 

 from trees whose presence along the borders of cultivated lands 

 is a shelter, a protection and an ornament to the fields which 

 they skirt. 



In Stockbridge, Deerfield and many others of our most beauti- 

 ful western towns, a single or double row of Rock Maples is the 

 appropriate and magnificent ornament of some of the principal 

 streets and roads. They elevate the public taste ; they may be 

 easily made also to contribute to sustain the public burden. 



Sp. 4. The Striped Maple. Moose Wood. A. Pennsylvan- 



icum. L. 



Figured in Michaux, I, 245 ; and Loudon, Arboretum, V, 28. 



This graceful little tree rarely attains to more than twelve 

 feet in height, yet I have measured, among the Green Moun- 

 tains, east of Berkshire, some stalks nearly twenty-four feet 

 high, and a plant is now growing, within the college grounds at 

 Cambridge, still taller. It abounds in the woods in the western 

 and middle part of the State and in Essex County. In Maine, 

 it is called Moose Wood, the bark and tender branches being 

 the favorite food of the moose, and, in their winter beats, it is 

 always found completely stripped. In Massachusetts, it is 

 known by this name, and also by that of the Striped Maple. 



When growing, as it commonly does, in the shade, the recent 

 shoots are green, very smooth, hardly dotted. The branches 

 continue of a light green, until the outer bark begins, in a year 

 or two, to yield and cleave, the cellular substance showing itself 

 white within, in longitudinal lines, which, afterwards turning 

 brown, give rise to the beautifully striated appearance charac- 

 teristic of the species. The leaves are opposite, — the united 

 bases of the long, round footstalks embracing the branch, — 

 large, ending in 3 long, acuminate lobes, sometimes 5 or 7, the 

 primary veins being 7, — finely and sharply serrate, heart- 



