ACERACE^ 



637 



individuals dark brown or often nearly black and broken by deep furrows into nar- 

 row ridges covered by closely appressed scales. 



Distribution. Banks of streams and rocky gorges; valley of the Yadkin River, 

 North Carolina, to northern Georgia, eastern Tennessee, central Alabama, western 

 Louisiana, and southern Arkansas. 



Occasionally planted as a shade-tree in the streets of the towns of northern Geor- 

 gia and Alabama. 



10. Acer grandidentatum, Nutt. Sugar Maple. 



(Acer Saccharum, var. grandidentatum, Silva N. Am. xiii. 8.) 



Leaves cordate or truncate at the base, with broad shallow sinuses, 3-lobed, with 

 acute or obtuse entire or slightly 3-lobed divisions, when they unfold slightly hairy 



on the upper and thickly coated with dense pale tomentum on the lower surface, and 

 at maturity thick and firm, dark green and lustrous above, pale and pubescent below, 

 especially on the stout nerves and veins, or rarely glabrous, 2'-5' in diameter, turn- 

 ing in the autumn before falling yellow and scarlet; their petioles stout, l'-2' long, 

 glabrous, often red after midsummer, encircling the branchlet with their large bases 

 villose on the inner surface. Flowers appearing with the leaves on long slender 

 drooping villose pedicels, in short-stalked corymbs; calyx campanulate, yellow, 

 sparingly hairy, with long pale hairs, about \' long, with broad rounded lobes, often 

 persistent under the fruit; corolla 0; stamens 7 or 8, much longer than the calyx, in 

 the pistillate flower shorter than the calyx; ovary usually glabrous, with long spread- 

 ing stigmatic lobes, or rudimentary in the staminate flower. Fruit often rose- 

 colored at midsummer, green at maturity, glabrous or rarely sparingly hairy, with 

 spreading or erect wings \'-V long; seeds smooth, light red-brown, about \' long. 



A tree, occasionally 30-40 high, with a trunk 8'-10' in diameter, stout usually 

 erect branches, and slender glabrous bright red branchlets marked by numerous 

 small pale lenticels and nearly encircled by the narrow leaf-scars, with conspicuous 

 bands of long pale hairs in their axils. "Winter-buds acute or acuminate, about 

 ^-^' long, bright red-brown, with puberulous-ciliate outer scales and obovate apiculate 

 inner scales sometimes \' long when fully grown. Bark of the trunk thin, dark 

 brown, separating on the surface into plate-like scales. Wood heavy, hard, close- 

 grained, bright brown or nearly white, with thick sapwood. 



