RED-FLOWERED MAPLE. 99 



tne soil. The keys and seeds are at least one half smaller than those of the 

 Acer eriocarpum, and ripen two or three weeks earlier. The leaves are also 

 smaller than those of that species, and in some respects resemble them. They 

 are glaucous and whitish underneath ; palmated or divided into three moderately 

 acuminate lobes, irregularly toothed ; but they are longer than they are broad, 

 usually rounded at the base, with two small lobes, or large teeth below the lat- 

 eral lobes. The extremities of this tree, which are formed by numerous twigs 

 united at the base, and when garnished with flowers and fruit of a deep-red. 

 before veg^tation has generally begun to revive, presents a very singular and 

 grand appearance. 



Varieties. The Acer rubrum has long been confounded by British authors 

 with the Acer eriocarpum ; but whether they are only varieties or races of the 

 same species, or not, there is a marked difference between them, both in the 

 habit of their growth and the colour of their flowers. The principal distinction, 

 however, consists in the fruit of the Acer eriocarpum being woolly, and that of 

 the Acer rubrum being smooth. 



There are two varieties, however, among cultivators, known by the name of 

 A. r. coccineimi., and A. r. intermedium .^ which difler so slightly from the Acer 

 rubrum, as hardly to be worthy of notice. The leaves of the former variety are 

 somewhat redder in spring, when they expand, than those of the species. 



Geography and History. The natural habitat of the red-flowered maple, 

 towards the north, according to Michaux, begins about Malebaye, in Canada, in 

 forty-eight degrees of latitude, where it is sparingly found ; but in proceeding 

 southward, it soon becomes more common, and abounds in Florida and Lower 

 Louisiana. It also grows beyond the Rocky Mountains, on the authority of Mr. 

 Douglass, at the sources of the Oregon. 



This tree was first cultivated in England by Mr. John Tradescant, jun., in 

 1646, at South Lambeth, near Vauxhall ; and since that time, it has been propa- 

 gated in the principal European nurseries, but less extensively than the Acer 

 eriocarpum. 



There are several recorded trees of this species, both in Britain and in Ireland, 

 which, in 1835, had arrived at nearly their maximum height. In Surrey, on an 

 eminence, in the arboretum at Milford, a tree is mentioned, as being forty feet 

 high, whichj in autumn, when its leaves assume a dark-red colour, looks like a 

 column of scarlet, and is seen from a great distance all round the country. At 

 Woodstock, in Kilkenny, Ireland, there is a tree, which, at sixty years planted, 

 was fifty feet in height. 



In France, in the botanic garden at Toulon, there is a tree of this species, 

 which, in forty-five years after planting, attained the height of twenty-nine feet. 



In Saxony, at Worlitz, an Acer rubrum attained the height of fifty-five feet 

 in sixty-five years after planting. 



In Bavaria, at Munich, a tree of this species is mentioned which attained the 

 height of forty feet in twenty-four years. 



Soil., Situation, Propagation, 4'c. "Of all the trees which flourish in grounds 

 which are occasionally overflowed," says Michaux, " this species is most multi- 

 plied in the middle and southern states. It occupies, in great part, the borders of 

 creeks, and abounds in all the swamps, which are often inundated, and always 

 miry." In these situations it is accompanied by the Nyssa biflora villosa, (black 

 gum,) Liquidambar styracitlua, Carya squamosa, (shell-bark hickory,) Unorcus 

 prinus discolor, (swamp white oak,) Fraxinus a. sambucifolia, (black ash.) and 

 the Fraxinus a. quadrangulata (blue ash.) To these are added, in Carolina and 

 Georgia, the Magnolia glauca, Quercus aquatica, (water oak,) Gordonia lasian- 

 thus, (loblolly bay,) Nyssa biflora, (sour gum.) and the Laurus carolincnsis 

 (red bay.) "It is a remarkable fact," continues Michaux. " that, west of the 



