Acer 679 



Distribution 



The sugar maple is one of the most widely and generally distributed trees 

 in Eastern North America. The northern limit of its range on the Atlantic 

 coast is Southern Newfoundland. It extends through Canada and the Northern 

 States southwards along the Alleghany Mountains to Northern Georgia and 

 West Florida, and westward along the valleys of the St. Lawrence and the 

 Saguenay, by the shores of Lake St. John and the northern borders of the Great 

 Lakes to the Lake of the Woods, and in the United States to Minnesota, Nebraska, 

 Eastern Kansas, and Eastern Texas. It is common in all these regions, growing 

 especially on rich uplands mixed with ashes and hickories, white oak, wild cherry, 

 black birch, yellow birch, and hemlock, and often in the north forming the principal 

 part of extensive forests. The undergrowth in some of the forests near the 

 northern border of the United States is often composed almost entirely of young 

 sugar maples, which grow readily under the dense shade of other trees. The 

 type is more prevalent in the north var. Rugelii and van nigra in the central 

 States, while var. leucoderme and var. floridanum appear to be the only forms 

 found in the south. 



Much of the splendour of the northern forest in early autumn is due to the 

 abundance of the sugar maple, which is then unsurpassed by any other tree in 

 brilliancy of colouring, the foliage turning to shades of deep red, scarlet, orange, or 

 clear yellow. 



A figure of an unusually large tree, showing the habit which it assumes when 

 in the open, is given in Garden and Forest, v. 380 (1892). It grows on the farm of 

 Mr. L. Parker, forty-five miles east of Cleveland, Ohio, and measures \2,\ feet in 

 girth at 2 feet from the ground, with very large limbs spreading over an area 100 

 feet in diameter. It has been tapped annually without any apparent ill-effects, 

 and yields each year three gallons of syrup. Another illustration in Garden and 

 Forest, iii. 167 (1890), of a tree exposed on a stony hillside in New Hampshire is 

 of a very different type, and shows the habit of an adult tree which has lost the 

 narrow upright form of growth it usually has when young.' 



Remarkable Trees 



Though introduced at a very early period (the date is given by Loudon as 

 1735, on whose authority we know not), the sugar maple has rarely thriven in 

 England, or, so far as we know, in Europe. The reasons for its failure to grow 

 in this country are as mysterious as in the case of the white oak, the American 

 beech, and other trees of the Eastern States ; but it seems a short-lived tree, and 

 seldom attains any considerable size. Loudon mentions several trees of no great 

 age 20 to 40 feet high, and one at Purser's Cross which was 45 feet. But none 

 of these, so far as we can learn, are now living, and some maples which have 

 been reported under this name turn out to belong to other species. We know, 



' The fastigiate tree, supposed to be of this species, is really A. rubrum. Cf. p. 672. 



