RED-FLOWERED MAPLE. 99 
tne soil. The keys and seeds are at least one half smaller than those of the 
Acer eriocarpum, and ripen two or three weeks earlier. The leaves are also 
smaller than those of that species, and in some respects resemhle them. They 
are glaucous and whitish underneath ; palmated or divided into three moderately 
acuminate lobes, irregularly toothed : but they are longer than they are broad, 
usually rounded at the base, with two small lobes, or large teeth below the lat- 
eral lobes. The extremities of this tree, which are formed by numerous twiars 
united at the base, and when garnished with flowers and fruit of a deep-red. 
before vegetation has generally begun to revive, presents a very singular and 
grand appearance. 
Varieties. The Acer rubrum has long been confounded bv British authors 
with the Acer eriocarpum: but whether they are only varieties or races of the 
same species, or not. there is a marked difference between them, both in the 
habit of their growth and the colour of their flowers. The principal distinction, 
however, consists in the fruit of the Acer eriocarpum beins woolly, and that of 
the Acer rubrum being smooth. 
There are two varieties, however, among cultivators, known by the name of 
A. r. coccinevm. and .4. r. intermedium, which differ so slightly from the Acer 
rubrum. as hardly to be worthy of notice. The leaves of the former variety are 
somewhat redder in spring, when they expand, than those of the species. 
Geography and History. The natural habitat of the red-flowered maple, 
towards the north, according to Michaux. begins about Malebaye, in Canada, in 
forty-eight degrees of latitude, where it is sparinsly found: but in proceeding 
southward, it soon becomes more common, and abounds in Florida and Lower 
Louisiana. It also grows beyond the Rocky Mountains, on the authority of Mr. 
Douglass, at the sources of the Oregon. 
This tree was first cultivated in England by Mr. John Tradescant, jun., in 
L646. at South Lambeth, near Yauxhall : and since that time, it has been propa- 
gated in the principal European nurseries, but less extensively than the Acer 
eriocarpum. 
There are several recorded trees of this species, both in Britain and in Ireland, 
which, in 1S35, had arrived at nearly their maximum heislit. In Surrey, on an 
eminence, in the arboretum at Milford, a tree is mentioned, as being forty feet 
high, which, in autumn, when its leaves assume a dark-red colour, looks like a 
column of scarlet, and is seen from a great distance all round the cotmtry. At 
Woodstock, in Kilkenny, Ireland, there is a tree, which, at sixty years planted, 
was fifty feet in height. 
In France, in the botanic garden at Toulon, there is a tree of this species, 
which, in forty-five years after planting, attained the height of twenty-nine feet. 
In Saxony, at Worlitz. an Acer rubrum attained the height of fifty-five feet 
n sixty-five years after planting. 
In Bavaria, at Munich, a tree of this species is mentioned which attained the 
leight of forty feet in twenty-four years. 
Sod. Situation. Propagation, frc. "Of all the trees which flourish in grounds 
.vhich are occasionally overflowed.' - ' says Michaux, ' this species is most multi- 
plied in the middle and southern states. It occupies, in great part, the borders of 
greeks, and abounds in all the swamps, which are often inundated, and always 
niry." In these situations it is accompanied by the Nyssa biflora villosa. (black 
mm.) Liquidambar styraciflua. Carya squamosa, (shell-bark hickory.) Quercus 
prinus discolor, (swamp white oak.) Fraxinus a. sambucifolia, (black ash.) and 
he Fraxinus a. quadrangulata (blue ash.) To these are added, in Carolina and 
ijfeorgia, the Magnolia glauca. Quercus aquatica. (water oak.) Gordonia lasian- 
hus, (loblolly bay.) Nyssa biflora. (sour gum.) and the Laurus carolinensis 
ired bay.) "It is a remarkable fact," continues Michaux, "that, west of the 
