ACERACE^ 



641 



and western Louisiana, with leaves usually rounded or sometimes cordate at the base, 

 3-lobed, with short broad lobes, and covered on the lower surface like the young 

 shoots and the petioles with thick hoary tomentum, and bright scarlet flowers and 

 fruit. Fruit ripening late in March and April, with large convergent wings, 2'-2^' 

 long and ^-f broad. More distinct is 



Acer rubrum, var. tridens, "Wood. Red Maple. 



Leaves obovate, usually narrowed from above the middle to the rounded or rarely 

 cuneate base, 3-lobed at the apex, with acute or acuminate lobes, simple or furnished 

 with short lateral secondary lobes, remotely serrate except toward the base, with 



incurved glandular teeth, and often ovate by the suppression of the lateral lobes and 

 acute, thick and firm in texture, glaucous and usually pubescent or rarely tomentose 

 below, 2'-3' long, ll'-2i' wide. Flowers sometimes tawny yellow. Fruit usually 

 much smaller and rarely also yellow. 



Distribution. Southern New Jersey southward through the coast region and 

 middle districts to southern Florida and along the Gulf coast to eastern Texas. 



2. Leaves compound. 



13. Acer Negundo, L. Box Elder. Ash-leaved Maple. 



Leaves 3-5-foliolate, with slender petioles 2'-3' in length, enlarged at the base 

 and often furnished with a minute fringe of deciduous white hairs, and in falling 

 leaving large conspicuous scars surrounding the stem; leaflets ovate or oval, acute, 

 rounded or wedge-shaped at the base, coarsely and irregularly serrate above the 

 middle, or sometimes 3-lobed, when they unfold coated below with tomentum, and 

 at maturity smooth or more or less pubescent, membranaceous, prominently veined, 

 bright green, paler on the under than on the upper surface, 2'-4' long, 2'-3' broad, 

 on stout petiolules, that of the terminal leaflet often V long or twice as long as 

 those of the smaller lateral leaflets, turning yellow in the autumn before falling. 

 Flowers minute, apetalous, yellow-green, the staminate and pistillate on separate 

 trees, expanding just before or with the leaves from buds developed in the axils of 

 the last leaves of the previous year, the staminate fascicled on slender hairy pedicels 

 l^'-2' long, the pistillate in narrow drooping racemes; calyx 5-lobed, hairy, cam- 



