S4 



ACER SACCHARINUM. 



greatly resemble the Norway iiiaplr. In autiiinii, after the ap])earanre of tlie 

 first frost, their colour ehaiiiies from green to all shades of red, Iroin the dceposl 

 crimson to light orange. The llowers, which aj)pear in April and May, are 

 small, of ;i ]);de iireenish-velhiw, and are suspended l)y slender, dro<ipinir ])edun- 

 clcs. The seed is contained in two caj)sules, united at the base, and ternnnating 

 in membraneous wings about an inch in length. It usually rijxMis in Pennsyl- 

 vania and New York by the first of October, though the fruit attains its full size 

 a month or six weeks earlier. l-iXternally, the keys apj)ear e(|uallv' i)erfect; but 

 one of them. Michaux informs us, is always empty. The fruit matures only 

 once in two or tliree years. 



Vnr'xvtij. The Acer saccharinum has been 

 confounded by some botanists with another tree 

 so nearly allied to it. that it can only be re- 

 garded as a variety. From tke dark hue of 

 its leaves, it was very approprialbly designated 

 by Mr. London, under the nan:je of A. s. ni- 

 grum, iyAcer nigrum^ Michaux,) or Black Su- 

 gar Maple. According to Michaux, the leaves 

 of this variety are pale-green beneath, the 

 veins of the lower surface and pel^ioles minutely 

 villous-pubescent, and the wings of the fruit a 

 little more diverging than those of the species, 

 as indicated in the adjoining figure. " The 

 leaves," he says, "are five or six inches long, 

 and exhibit, in every respect, nearly the same 

 conformation as those of the tru^ sugar maple." 

 "They differ from it," coininites he, "chiefly 

 m being of a darker green, cjaid of a thicker 

 texture ; and in being somewhat more bluntly 

 lobed. The tree is indiscri'minately mixed with the common sugar maple, 

 through extensive regions of country in New Hampshire, Vermont, and Connec- 

 ticut ; but is readily distinguished from it, by the smaller size it attains, and the 

 darker colour of the leaves." When the tree stands alone, it naturally assumes 

 a regular and agreeable forms In Canada and New England, it rarely exceeds 

 fifty feet in height, with a diameter of fltfteen or twenty inches ; but in western 

 New York, and in the immense valleys through which flow the great rivers of 

 the west, it is common, and atfa%is the full magnitude of the species. 



Geography and History. According to the elder Michaux, this tree is first 

 seen a little north of Lake St. John, in Canada, near the forty-eighth degree of 

 north latitude, which, in the rigour of its winter, corresponds with the parallel 

 of about the sixty-eighth degree in Europe. It is nowhere more abundant than 

 between the parallels of forty-three and forty-six degrees, comprising all, or a 

 great part of Canada, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, the states of Maine, New 

 Hampshire, Vermont, and New York, the true region assigned by nature for the 

 growth of this tree. It is also found, but more sparingly, in almost every state 

 in the union, particularly on the flanks of the entire range of the Alleghanies to 

 their termination in Georgia. 



This species was introduced into England, in 1734, by Collinson, and since 

 that time, it has been cultivated in the principal gardens throughout Europe. 

 Count Wingersky is said to have planted a great number of trees on his estate in 

 Moravia, and to have drawn off the sap from them at the age of twenty-five 

 years, in order to make sugar. He succeeded in procuring a very good article : 

 but in consequence of depriving the trees of their sap every year, they became 

 sickly, and soon afterwards died. 



