Acer rubrum, 



A^er rvbnim, 



THE RED-FLOWERED MAPLE 



Synonymcs. 



' LiNN^us, Species Plantanim. 

 De Candolle, Prodromus. 

 JMicHAUX, North American Sylva. 

 Loudon, Arboretum Britannicum. 

 ToRKEY AND Gray, Flora of North America. 

 France. 

 Germany. 

 Britain. 



Western States. 

 Other parts of the United States. 



i^rable rouge, 



Roihcr Ahum, 



Scarlet-flowered Maple, 



Maple, 



Red JMaple, Soft Maple, Swamp Blaple, 



Derirationa. The specific name, rubrum, is derived from the Latin ruber, red, havin? reference to the colour of the fiow 

 ers, fruit, and youn? shoots of this tree. The other names have chiefly the same signification as the botanical one. 



Engravings. Michaux, North American Sylva, pi. 41 ; Audubon, Birds of America, pi. liv. et Ixvii. ; Loudon, Arboretum 

 Britamiicum, i., figure 130; p. 457, el v., pi. 39; and the figures below. 



Specific Characters. Leaves cordate at the base, jjlaucous beneath, deeply and unequally toothed, palrnately 

 5-lobed, with acute recesses. Flowers conglomerate, 5-petaled, pentaadrous. Ovaries smooth. i)o?i, 

 Miller's Diet. 



Description. 

 i*^'$^HE Acer rubrum, whether 



^f 'tt' i^ ^^^ flower or iu fohage, 

 Ij? LI fe like its congeners, is a 



!L ii^^^i beautiful tree. AUhough 

 it neither attains the size nor the height of the 

 sugar maple, it much resem.bles that tree in its 

 general appearance ; but it may be easily distin- 

 guished from it by its trunk, Avhich, when young, \"' 

 is more profusely marked with broad, pale-yellow ^ x 

 lichens. In open situations, it often ramifies at V 

 the ground, and assumes the form of several 

 small trees, growing in a clump. The bark, in 

 such situations, is usually of a darker colour, and 

 smoother, when young, than it is on trees grow- 

 ing in shady woods. When the tree is old, how- 

 ever, the epidermis of the trunk, like that of the 

 liquidambar, and white oak, becomes brown, 

 chapped, and deeply furrowed. The ordinary 

 height of this species does not exceed fifty or 

 sixty feet ; but in favourable situations, as in the Tnaple svmmps in New Jersey 

 and Pennsylvania, it often attains a height of seventy or eighty feet, with a trunk 

 three or four feet in diameter. The blossoms of this tree are the first that an- 

 nounce the return of spring. It flowers near St. Mary's, in Georgia, from the 

 20th to the last of February, and five or six weeks later near Philadelphia and 

 New York. The flowers, which are of a beautiful purple or deep-red, unfold 

 more than a fortnight before the leaves. They are small, aggregate, and are 

 situated at the extremity of the branches. The fruit is suspended by long, flex- 

 ible peduncles, and is of the same hue of the flowers ; though it varies in size 

 and in the intensity of its colouring, accordmg to the exposure and dampness of 



