Minnesota Plant Life. 



five or eighty feet, and, under the most favorable conditions, 

 to nearly twice this height. On the trunk the bark is of a light 

 gray color, while on young twigs it is orange or yellow-brown. 

 The leaves are darker green than those of the soft maple and 

 assume a variety of colors in the autumn, some trees turning 

 scarlet, others crimson, others yellow, If a particular tree is 

 yellow one year it will be yellow the next, the tint of the autumn 

 foliage being apparently an individual habit. The pistillate 

 flowers are more commonly borne towards the tips of their 



branchlets, while the staminate 

 flowers are on the sides, and lower 

 down. The wood is strong and 

 tough, more valuable than that of 

 any other common maple. It is 

 useful for fuel and is employed in 

 the manufacture of flooring, furni- 

 ture, tool-handles and portions of 

 machinery. Bird's-eye maple and 

 a form of curly maple are obtained 

 from diseased trunks of the sugar- 

 maple. It is this species which sup- 

 plies the greater part of the maple 

 sugar, though that is also made 

 from the black maple and from the 

 moosewood by the Indians of north- 

 ern Minnesota. The sugar obtained 

 from the sugar-maple is of a some- 

 what better quality, however, than 

 that derived from the other species. 



Black maples. The black maple is very closely related to 

 the sugar-maple and is possibly only a variety of it. 



Moosewood maples. The moosewood maple occurs in Min- 

 nesota as a small and bushy tree with red-brown twigs and 

 striped bark of a brown color. The leaves are smooth on both 

 sides, turning yellow in autumn. The flowers open in late 

 spring, the sterile and the fertile being produced on the same 

 plant, but in different clusters. The wood is light and soft. 

 The name "moosewood" is applied from the habit which the 

 moose have of chewing the young twigs on account of their 

 sweet juices. 



FIG. 155. Moosewood maple. After 

 Britton and Brown. 



