Acer eriocarjmm,^ 

 THE COTTON-FRUITED MAPLE. 



Synonymes. 



Acer enocarpum, 



Acer dasycarpum, 



Erable a fruits cotonneux, Erable blanc, 



Rauher Ahorn, 



Acero cotonoso, Acero 



spugnoso, Acero di Virginia, 

 Sir Charles Wagner's Maple, 

 Silver Maple, Silver-leaved Maple, 

 White Maple, Soft Maple, 



bianco, Acero 



MicHAux, North American Sylva. 



Don, Miller's Dictionary. 



Loudon, Arboretum Britannicum. 



WiLLDENow, Linnsei Species Plantarum. 



ToRREY AND Gray, Fiora of North America. 



France. 



Germany. 



Italy. 



Britain. 



New York. 



Other paSts of Anglo-America. 



Derivations. The specific name, eriocarpum, is derived from the Greek erion, cotion, and carpos, fruit, in allusion to the 

 down which grows on the fruit. The name dasycarpum, is also from the Greek, and signifies woolly-fruited. 



Engravings. Michaux, North American Sylva, pi. 40; Loudon, Arboretum Britannicum, i., figure 129; p. 456, et v., 

 pi. 37 ; and the figures below. 



Specific Characters. Leaves truncate at the base, smooth and glaucous beneath, palmately 5-lobed, with 

 blunt recesses, and unequally and deeply-toothed lobes. Flowers conglomerate, on short pedicels, 

 apetalous, pentandrous. Ovaries downy. Don, Miller's Diet. 



Description. 



gt^'^HE Acer eriocarpum, in 



yj '-Tp 1^ favourable situations, 



J) LI fc^ attains a height of thir- 



^^^S ty to fifty feet, with a 



trunk from two to four feet in diameter ; but 

 on the banks of some of the western rivers, 

 trees may be found of a diameter of eight 

 or nine feet. The trunk is low, and divides 

 itself into a great number of branches, so 

 divergent, that Michaux says, " they form a 

 head more spacious, in proportion to the size of 

 the trunk, than that of any other tree with 

 which I am acquainted." The flowers, which 

 appear in March, April or May, are of a pale- 

 pink, or pale-yellowish purple, small and ses- 

 sile, with a downy ovarium. The fruit is 

 larger than that of any other species growing 

 east of the Rocky Mountains. It consists of 

 two capsules, joined at the base, each of which 



encloses a globular seed, and is terminated by a membraneous falciform wing, 

 from two to three inches long. In Pennsylvania, it is ripe early in May, and a 

 month earlier in Carolina and Georgia. At this period of growth, the leaves, 

 which have attained half their size, arc very downy beneath ; a month later, when 

 fully grown, they are perfectly smooth, and are as broad as they are long. 

 They are opposite, and supported by long petioles, and are divided by deep 

 sinuses into four lobes. They are toothed on the edges, are of a bright-green on 

 the upper surface, and of a beautiful white beneath. The foliage, however, is 



