Acer ftpicatiim,, 

 THE SPIKE-FLOWERED MAPLE. 



Synoni/mcs. 



J Linnaeus, Species Plantarum. 

 De Candoi.le, Prodromus. 

 Don, Miller's Dictionary. 



Arer montanum, 

 Erable de montagne, 

 Berg Ahorn, 

 Acero di montagna, 

 Mountain ]\Iaple, Low Maple, 



Loudon, Arboretum Britannicum. 

 [Tokrev and Gray, Flora of North America. 

 MiciiAux, North American Sylva. 

 France. 

 Germany. 

 Italy. 

 Britain and Anglo-America. 



A' 



tannic 



i'nTarinos. Michaux, North American Sylva, pi. 47; Audubon, Birds of America, pi. cxxxiv. ; Loudon, Arboretum Brl- 

 nicum, l,figure 115, pi. 435, el v. p. 26; and llie figures below. 



Specific Characters. Leaves cordate, 3- or slightly 5-lobed, acuminated, pubescent beneath, unequally and 

 coarsely serrated. Racemes compound, erect. Petals linear. Fruit smooth, with the wings rather 

 diverging. J)o7i, Millers Diet. 



Description. 



3^^ HE Mountain Maple 



H h P 1^ is a low, deciduous 



1)] U 'H tree or shrub, seldom 



^l^S exceeding a height 

 of ten or twelve feet in its native hab- 

 itat, and it often flowers at an eleva- 

 tion of less than six feet. It most fre- 

 quently grows in the form of a shrub, i 

 with a single stem, and a straight stock. 

 The leaves are large, opposite, and 

 divided into three acute and indented 

 lobes. They are slightly hairy at their 

 unfolding, and when fully grown, they 



are uneven and of a dark green on the upper surface. The flowers, which 

 appear in May and June, are small, of a greenish colour, and consist of semi- 

 erect spikes from two to four inches in length. The seeds, which are smaller 

 than any of the other American maples, are fixed upon slender, pendulous foot- 

 stalks. They are reddish at maturity, have each a small cavity on one side, 

 and are surmounted by a membraneous wing. They are usually ripe in the 

 early part of October. 



Geography and History. The Acer spicatum is most abundant in Canada, 

 and along the range of the Alleghany Mountains, as far south as the forty-first 

 degree of latitude. It was introduced into England in 1750, by Archibald, Duke 

 of Argyle, and has since been cultivated in many of the gardens on the continent. 

 According to Loudon, the largest tree of this species in England, is at Croome, 

 in Worcestershire, which, in 1835, had been planted thirty years, and was forty 

 feet high, fifteen inches in diameter near the ground, with an ambitus, or extent of 

 branches, of twenty feet. He mentions another at Edinburgh, in the Caledonian 

 Horticultural Society's garden, which, nine years after planting, was thirty feet 

 high. Also, another at Florence Court, the residence of the Earl of Enniskillen, 

 in Ireland, which at thirty-eight years' growth was fifty feet high. 



