372 APPENDIX. 



though it is more at home in a wet soil, succeeds very well in any 

 common good soil. This tree is sufficiently large for streets or 

 parks, growing in moist land to the height of eighty feet ; it is 

 highly ornamental while in flower, in seed, or in the rich autum- 

 nal tints of its foliage. 



Acer dasycarpum. White Maple. This species is sometimes 

 confounded with the Red Maple, but Emerson says, " It may be 

 easily distinguished by the silvery whiteness of the under surface 

 of the leaves, and by the color of the spray. The young shoots 

 are of a light green, inclined to yellow, with oblong brown dots ; 

 in the second year they become finely striate with brown, and the 

 dots enlarge. The beauty of the finely-cut foliage, the contrast 

 between the rich green of the upper surface of the leaves and the 

 silver color of the lower, and the magnificent spread of the 

 limbs of the White Maple, recommend it as an ornamental tree ; 

 and it has been extensively introduced in New York, Philadel- 

 phia, and some other cities." 1 was familiar with a number of 

 large White Maple trees, growing in Lancaster, Mass., one of which, 

 near Centre Bridge, in a meadow-pasture, is thus described by 

 Mr. Emerson: " In 1840 it was eighteen feet five inches in cir- 

 cumference at one foot from the ground, the bulging roots pre- 

 venting a nearer measurement at the surface. At three feet it 

 measured sixteen feet eight inches ; at six feet, thirteen feet ten 

 and a half inches. It divides, at a low point, into several large 

 branches, and rises to about sixty feet." 



Acer saccharinum. The Rock or Sugar Maple. The Rock 

 Maple is easily distinguished from the other Maples by the 

 roundness of the notch between the lobes of the leaves, which, in 

 those already described, is somewhat acute. This tree, which is 

 also called Hard Maple, from the character of its wood, and Sugar 

 Maple, from the valuable product of its sap, is, in all respects, 

 the most remarkable tree of the family. When young, it is a 

 beautiful, neat, and shapely tree, with a rich, full, leafy head, of 

 a great variety of forms, enlarging upwards, and forming a 

 broad mass above ; or, tapering at each extremity, and full in the 

 middle, supported by an erect, smooth, agreeably-clouded column, 



