SAPINDACEAE, SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 101 
where it was discovered by Thomas Nuttall, on the Wahsatch Mountains of Utah, on the Huachuaca 
and other ranges of southern Arizona, and on the Mogollon Mountains of New Mexico, the Guadaloupe 
Mountains of western Texas, and the ranges of Coahuila. 
The wood of Acer barbatwn, var. grandidentatum, is heavy, hard, and very close-grained ; it 1s 
light brown or sometimes nearly white, with thick sapwood and thin remote medullary rays. The 
specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood is 0.6902, a cubic foot weighing 43.01 pounds.’ 
Acer barbatum, var. grundidentatum, was introduced into the Arnold Arboretum in 1882; it 
grows very slowly, and probably will be of little value as an ornamental tree. 
The Sugar Maple, strangely enough, escaped the attention of the early botanists who examined the 
forests of North America, and it was not known to Linneus. Wangenheim,? whose work on American 
trees was published in Germany in 1787, first described it, although it is stated by Aiton® that the 
Sugar Maple was introduced into England by Peter Collinson ‘ in 1735. The hardiness of the Sugar 
Maple, its rapid growth in good soil, its excellent habit, the grace of its flowers, the beauty of its foliage 
especially in autumn, and its freedom from serious disease make it one of the most valuable ornamental 
trees of North America, and it is now planted in immense numbers in the northern states for shade and 
for the embellishment of streets, roadsides, and parks. 
1 This tree, as might be expected from the aridity and the high 
elevation of the regions it inhabits, grows very slowly. The speci- 
men which represents it in the Jesup Collection of North American 
Woods in the American Museum of Natural History in New York, 
and which was gathered in Utah, is eight and three quarter inches 
in diameter, and shows one hundred and forty layers of annual 
growth with eighty-five layers of sapwood. 
2 Wangenheim, misled no doubt by the name saccharinum be- 
stowed by Linneus upon another American Maple, transferred it 
to the true Sugar Maple ; and his name has been adopted by nearly 
every author who has since written of this tree. 
8 Hort. Kew. iii. 435. 
4 See i. 8. 
5 The Sugar Maple, like the Hickories, the White Oaks, and 
other upland trees of eastern America, does not flourish in the Old 
World, and really fine specimens, if they exist at all in Europe, are 
extremely rare, although one hundred and fifty years have passed 
since it was introduced, and at different times considerable atten- 
tion has been given to its cultivation. It is now seldom planted in 
Europe, and this accounts, perhaps, for the fact that no marked 
seminal varieties of the Sugar Maple have been developed in culti- 
vation ; for it is not probable that this tree would show less ten- 
dency to vary in the shape of its leaves than other Maples, had it 
been raised in nurseries from seed in as great numbers. The trees 
planted in America are seldom obtained in this manner, being gen- 
erally taken from the forest. 
