682 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



Flowers, staminate and pistillate together, in pendulous racemes, appearing 

 when the leaves are fully grown, bright yellow, fragrant ; pedicels slender, 

 pubescent, often branched ; stamens nine or ten, filaments pubescent ; ovary 

 tomentose. Fruit, ripening in autumn, brown, the carpels covered with long, pale 

 hairs, which extend along the thickened edge of the wing ; keys slightly divergent, 

 about 2 inches long. (A, H.) 



Distribution 



This species, which is the largest of the American maples, is confined to the 

 Pacific coast, where it extends from about 55 N. in Alaska to the San Bernardino 

 Mountains of Southern California, but never, according to Sargent, far from the 

 coast or ascending the mountains higher than about 2000 feet. It is the largest 

 deciduous tree in Vancouver Island except Populus trichocarpa, and I believe also 

 in Washington and Oregon, though surpassed by some of the oaks in California. 

 It attains its maximum size in the wet and mild climate of Puget Sound, 

 especially in the Olympic Mountains, and grows with the luxuriance of a tropical 

 tree covered with ferns, moss, and climbing plants. The beautiful photograph 

 (Plate 193), for which I am indebted to Mrs. Browne of Tacoma, was taken near 

 Lake Cushman in the Olympic Mountains. I cannot give exact measurements of 

 these trees, but the height was estimated at 130 feet.^ On Capt. Barkley's farm, 

 north of Duncans, Vancouver Island, I measured several trees of no to 120 feet 

 high, and on Swallowfield farm two trees on the banks of a river, of about the 

 same height, one being 12 feet, the other 13 feet in girth. A gigantic spreading 

 tree on the same farm had a swelling butt, no less than 15 paces round at the 

 ground, but of no great height. It grows as a rule in flat meadows with Douglas 

 fir, Abies grandis, and Thuya plicata, and likes a fairly damp soil. Farther south 

 in the drier country of Oregon, it is smaller ; Sheldon says 50 to 90 feet high by 

 6 to 15 feet in girth. In the dry country of Northern California about Lake Tahoe 

 it becomes a low crooked tree only 8 to 20 inches in diameter. Its large keys 

 are produced very abundantly, and when ripe add to the ornamental appearance 

 of the tree. 



Cultivation 



Discovered by Menzies during Vancouver's voyage to British Columbia, it 

 was introduced into England in 181 2. Douglas sent home seeds to the Royal 

 Horticultural Society about 1827, from which we believe the oldest trees in England 

 have grown. But though very easy to raise and a very rapid grower when young, 

 it does not ripen its young wood when quite young, this being often killed back by 

 the frosts of winter, soinetimes to the ground ; but as the trees get older this 

 failing decreases. Though the tree is hardy, at least as far north as East Lothian, 



' Mr. F. R. S. Balfour of Dawick tells me that in the deep alluvial soil of the valley above Lake Cushman, this tree 

 attains an immense size, being well sheltered by the steep mountains around. The maples grow here mixed with Alnus 

 oregona, Populus trichocarpa, and Thuya plicata ; and though overtopped by the last two, he estimated the maples at over 

 150 feet high. He also saw it of great size in the Puyallup Valley, and at the mouth of the Nisqually River in Washington ; 

 and adds that it is being extensively planted as a shade tree in the towns of the I'acihc coast. 



