Minnesota Plant Life. 



317 



Mountain-maples. The mountain-maple in Minnesota is a 

 rather low shrub. The leaves turn scarlet or orange in autumn 

 and the flowers are of two sorts, generally produced in the same 

 cluster, the staminate towards the tips and the pistillate toward 

 the bases. The wood is soft, light, and of little commercial 

 value. 



Box-elders. The box-elder grows as a small tree, thirty or 

 forty feet in height, though farther south it becomes larger. 

 The bark is of a brown or gray color; the twigs are purplish 

 with a white bloom. The leaves do not show any brilliant 

 autumn coloration. There are two kinds of flowers, staminate 

 and pistillate, always borne on separate trees. The staminate 

 flowers hang in clusters on 

 thread-like stalks, while the 

 pistillate droop in loose ra- 

 cemes. The fruits mature 

 in autumn and often cling 

 to the trees throughout the 

 winter. When they fall in 

 autumn, as they more com- 

 monly do, the stems on 

 which they were produced 

 remain until the succeeding 

 spring, attached to the twigs 

 that bore them. The wood 

 is soft and weak, but is em- 



i i ,1 f FIG. 156. Touch-me-not. After Britton and Brown. 



ployed in the manufacture 



of some woodenware and for wood-pulp. This is a favorite 

 shade tree along the streets of Minnesota towns. When grow- 

 ing wild it is to be looked for especially beside streams and in 

 low woods. 



Buckeyes. The horse-chestnut family is represented in Min- 

 nesota by the buckeye, a plant which is probably introduced into 

 the state by the agency of man and is nowhere abundant, though 

 it occurs as if native in a few southeastern localities. It is a 

 small tree with long-stemmed leaves made up of about five 

 willow-leaf-shaped leaflets. The flowers, borne in terminal 

 panicles, are of a yellow color, not so striking in their appear- 

 ance as those of the horse-chestnut. The fruit is a spiny, spher- 



