86 SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. SAPINDACES. 
in length. The sepals are petaloid, linear-lanceolate or obovate, a quarter of an inch long and a little 
shorter and narrower than the bright canary-yellow petals. There are seven or eight stamens, which 
are shorter than the petals in the sterile flower, and rudimentary in the fertile flower. The pistil 1s 
purplish brown and puberulous, with a stout style united nearly to the top and spreading recurved 
stigmas; in the sterile flower it is reduced to a minute pointed rudiment. The fruit, which is produced 
in long drooping racemes, is glabrous with thin spreading wings three quarters of an inch long, and 1s 
marked on one side of each nutlet by a small cavity. The seed is a quarter of an inch long with a dark 
red-brown slightly rugose coat. 
The northern hmits of Acer Pennsylvanicum are the shores of Ha-Ha Bay in the valley of the 
Saguenay River; it ranges westward along the shores of Lake Ontario and the islands of Lake Huron 
to northeastern Minnesota; it is common in the northern Atlantic states, especially in the interior and 
elevated regions, and extends southward along the Appalachian Mountains to northern Georgia." 
Acer Pennsylvanicum is a shade-loving plant, and usually grows in forests composed of the Sugar 
Maple, the Beech, the Canoe Birch, the Yellow Birch, and the Hemlock, often forming in some parts of 
northern New England a large proportion of their shrubby undergrowth. In more open situations it 
rises in the northern states to the height of a small tree, but attains its greatest size on the slopes of the 
Big Smoky Mountains in Tennessee and of the Blue Ridge in North and South Carolina. 
The wood of Acer Pennsylvanicum is light, soft, and close-grained ; it contains numerous thin 
medullary rays, and is light brown with thick lighter colored sapwood consisting of thirty to forty layers 
of annual growth. The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood is 0.5299, a cubic foot weighing 
33.02 pounds. 
Acer Pennsylvanicum has few economic uses. In some parts of the country cattle are turned into 
the forest in the early spring to browse on the young and tender shoots filled with saccharine juice, 
which are the favorite food of the moose and the deer. Its principal value, however, consists in its 
beauty. The excellent habit of this small tree, the brilliancy of its young leaves and bud-scales in early 
spring, its handsome graceful flowers, its large bright summer foliage and brilliant autumn colors, and 
the conspicuous markings of its trunk and branches, more striking in winter even than in summer, make 
it a valuable garden plant, beautiful at all seasons of the year. 
Acer Pennsylvanicum appears to have been first noticed in 1747 by the Swedish traveler Kalm,? 
who sent it to Linneus.’ It was introduced in 1755* into the gardens of Europe, where it is still 
occasionally cultivated. 
1 The type represented in America by Acer Pennsylvanicum ap- states. On his return to Sweden Kalm was appointed professor of 
pears in the flora of Japan in A. rujinerve (Siebold & Zuccarini, botany in the University at Abo, and published (1753-1761) an ac- 
Abhand. Akad. Miinch. iv. 2,155; Fl. Jap. ii. 85, t. 148. — Maxi- count of his American travels. A German edition of this interest- 
mowicz, Bull. Acad. Sci. St. Petersbourg, xxvi. 441 [Mél. Biol. x. ing book soon appeared, and was followed in 1772 by an English 
596]), which is barely distinguishable from the American plant edition. This is the most important of Kalm’s published works, 
except in some comparatively unimportant characters. although he wrote a number of botanical treatises. His memory 
2 Peter Kalm (1715-1779) was a native of Bothnia and a favor- is perpetuated by the name of the beautiful Mountain Laurel, Kal- 
ite pupil and disciple of Linnzus, at whose instance he was sent by mia, bestowed by his master, Linnzus. 
the Swedish government to travel in America, where he landed in 8 The earliest figure of Acer Pennsylvanicum was published by 
1748 and remained during three years, devoting them to explora- Duhamel in the Traité des Arbres in 1755 (i. 28, t. 12). 
tions of the flora and natural resources of the middle and northern * Aiton, Hort. Kew. iii. 435. 
