Acer. SAPINDACEtE. 435 



2. Acer, Toum. Maple, (Classical Latin name for the majDle.) — Trees 

 or shrubs with firm white wood and copious saccharine sap. Leaves opposite, in 

 ours palmately lobed or divided, except in § Negundo, where pinnate. Fruits 

 with supernumerary carpels are frequent in many species. — Inst. 615, t. 380; 

 L. Gen. no. 317 ; Gray, Gen. 111. ii. 199, t. 174; Benth. & Hook. Gen. i. 409 ; 

 Pax in Engl. Jahrb. vi. 287-374, vii. 177-272, xi. 72-83, & in Engl. & Prantl, 

 Nat. Pflanzenf. iii. Ab. 5, 269; Wesmael, Bull. Soc. Bot. Belg. xxix. 17-65. 

 Sargent, Silv. ii. 79-113, t. 82-97; Schwerin, Gartenfl. xlii. 161, et seq. ; 

 Trelease, Rep. Mo. Bot. Gard. v. 88-106, t. 4-16 (showing also winter state) ; 

 Beal, Sugar Maples of Centr. Mich, (reprint from Rep. Sec. Agric. Mich, xxxiii). 

 — About seventy species, nearly confined to the N. Temperate Zone ; more than 

 half of them of E. Asia. In China and Japan the foliage of certain species 

 shows remarkable departures from the stellate lobing so characteristic in most of 

 our own maples. Not only do ovate or oblong pinnately veined leaves occur, 

 but in some species pedately or sub-pinnately 3-foliolate leaves, wholly invalidat- 

 ing the foliar distinction of Negundo, — a group not well separable generically 

 by the absence of the disk, this being in some cases obsolete in Acer proper. 



A. PLATANofDES, L. Spec. il. 1055, the Norway Maple, frequently planted as a shade tree 

 and said to be occasionally self-sown, is of a section not represented in our flora, and may be 

 recognized by its close dark TiUa-\\ke bark, large 5-lobed sinuately sharp-toothed leaves, and 

 very large fruit spreading 3 or 4 inches from tip to tip of the divaricate wings. (Cult, from 

 Eu., Asia.) 



§ 1. SpicIta, Pax (extended). Flowers polygamous, in racemes or racemi- 



form panicles : both floral envelopes present ; disk well developed. — Pax in 



Engl. Jahrb. vi. 326. 



* Petals narrow, much exceeding the short-ovate sepals : inflorescences at first erect or 

 ascending. 



A. spicatum. Lam. (Mountain Maple.) A shrub or small tree, seldom 25 feet in 

 height, with thin smooth bark : branchlets tomentulose when young but soon quite glabrate : 

 leaves rather small, of soft texture, with 3 principal acuminate lobes, and often two shorter 

 ones near the cordate or subcordate base, rather sharply serrate-dentate, above glabrate, 

 green, and witli furrowed veins, the lower surface paler, tomentose or very tardily glabrate 

 (except the tufted axils of the veins) : flowers small and numerous in terminal slender- 

 peduncled racemiform panicles ; pedicels spreading, 3 to 5 lines in length at anthesis : 

 petals spatulate, thrice the length of the pubescent sepals : stamens about 8, regular and 

 symmetrical, or all more or less strongly deflexed : ^ flowers with hairy rudimentary 

 pistil: disk of nearly se])arate glands alternating with and somewhat external to the fila- 

 ments : fruit atamaturity about an inch broad ; the outer margins of its divergent wings 

 making an angle of about 90°. — Diet. ii. 381 ; Audubon, Birds Am. t. 134 ; Torr. & Gray, 

 n. i. 246; Chapm. Fl. 80; Emerson, Trees & Shrubs Mass. ed. 2, ii. 567, with plate; Sar- 

 gent, Silv. ii. 83, t. 82, 83; Gray, PI. For. Trees N. A. t. 25. A. Pensylvanicum, Du Roi, 

 Diss. 61 ; Wang. Nordam. Holzart. 82, t. 12, f. 30; not L. A. parviflurum, Ehrh. Beitr. iv. 

 25, vi. 40. A. montanum, Ait. Kew. iii. 435; Michx. Fl. ii. 253; Guimj). Otto & Hayne, 

 Abbild. Holzart. 59, t. 48; Hook. Fl. Bor.-Am. i. 111. — Preferring rocky soil in open 

 woods, Newfoundland, S. Labrador, and Nova Scotia to the mountains of N. Carolina and 

 Georgia and northwest to Winnipeg, the Saskatchewan, and even the shores of Hudson Bay ; 

 fl., ace. to locality. May to July ; fr. July, August. A variety in E. Asia has 5-9-lobed 

 more deeply serrate leaves. 



* * Petals and sepals rather broad, subec^ual in length : inflorescences drooping or pen- 

 dulous. 



