Acer 685 



axil-tufts. Cf. Plate 205, Fig. i. There are specimens of this variety at Kew ; and 

 a tree at Grayswood, near Haselmere, was about 30 feet high in 1906, and appeared 

 to be very vigorous and thriving. 



A considerable number of horticultural varieties are known : 



2. Var. variegatum} Leaves with broad white margin. One of the most 

 popular and most largely grown of all variegated trees. It originated as a chance 

 branch sport in the nursery of M. Fromant at Toulouse in 1845; but remained 

 almost unknown, till 1853, when it was awarded, at a horticultural show at Toulouse, 

 a medal given by the Empress Eugenie. 



3. Several other coloured forms are known, as var. aureo-maculatum, leaves 

 spotted with yellow ; var. aureo-marginatum, leaves with yellow margin ; and var. 

 auratum, leaves yellow. 



4. Var. violacewn? Young branchlets covered with a glaucous violet bloom. 



5. Var. crispum? Leaves variously cut and curled. According to Nicholson, 

 this is not nearly so vigorous a grower as the type. (A. H.) 



Distribution 



This species is the most widely distributed of North American maples, extend- 

 ing in its typical form from Western Vermont and Central New York, southward to 

 Northern Florida, and westward to the Rocky Mountains. According to Sargent, 

 it is rare east of the Alleghany Mountains, and is commonest in the basin of the 

 Mississippi, attaining its largest size in the valley of the lower Ohio. The biggest 

 recorded, so far as we know, is one measured by Ridgway in the Wabash Valley, 

 which was 60 feet high by 12 feet in girth. It is one of the few eastern trees, which 

 is quite at home in the dry prairie region, and is found on most of the rivers of the 

 great plains, and on the foot-hills of the Rocky Mountains, where it is usually a 

 stunted and ill-shaped tree or bush, and rarely has a clean or straight stem. Slightly 

 modified, as regards the amount of pubescence on the leaves and branchlets, it 

 occurs in Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Eastern Arizona. Var. californicum is 

 met with in California in the valley of the lower Sacramento river, in the interior 

 valleys of the coast ranges from San Francisco Bay to about lat. 35, and in the high 

 canons of the San Bernardino Mountains ; and has been planted, with successful 

 results, on the alkaline lands of the San Joaquin valley.* 



In Western America it is largely planted for shelter belts.' Mr. W. T. 

 Macoun states in a recent number of the Canadian Forestry Journal, p. 80 (1907), 

 that in the prairie provinces it is used largely in plantations. It grows rapidly 

 during the first twenty years, and produces a very dense cover, which makes it a 

 bad neighbour for slow-growing trees, but a good nurse for those which, like birch, 

 ash, and American elm, can hold their own in its company. 



* Card. Chron. 1871, p. 1202, f. 275. Cf. also Rev. Horl. 1861, p. 268; Card. Chron. 1861, p. 867 ; Flore des 

 Sores, vii. 117 (1867). '^ Negundo aceroides, var. violaceum, Kirchner, Arb. Muse. 190 (1864). 



5 G. Don, in I^udon, Arb. et Frut. BHt. i. 460 (1838). ' Hilyard, Soils, 481 (1906). 



' Cf. U.S. Dept. Agrie. Forest Service, Circular 86 (1907), which gives an elaborate account of the economic uses of 

 this tree in the United States, with notes on its propagation and cultivation. 



