26. ACER DASYCARPUM SILVER-LEAVED MAPLE. 13 



downy while young. Flowers in fascicles or umbels with short pedicels, greenish- 

 yellow and appearing before the leaves; ovaries and young fruit downy; petals none. 

 Fruit with large divergent wings and smooth at maturity (though downy when 

 young). 



(The specific name, dasycarpum, is from the Greek dadvS, hairy, and KapTto 1 *, 

 fruit.) 



A handsome, graceful tree with wide-spreading top, more or less pen- 

 dent branches, and light airy foliage. The bark of the trunk is mod- 

 erately rough with not very firmly adherent longitudinal ridges and of a 

 brownish gray color. Growing as it does along the margins of ponds 

 and still- water, its graceful sprays and handsome party-colored leaves 

 seem by reflection in the mirror surface doubly beautiful. Isolated trees 

 in such situations sometimes have trunks 5 ft. (1.50 m.) or more in diame- 

 ter. They are short though as compared with the slim, straight trunks 

 of the forests where the trees are sometimes found 100 ft. (30 m.) or 

 rarely more in height. 



HABITAT. South-eastern Canada and eastern United States generally, 

 south to Florida and west to a little beyond the Mississippi river, grow- 

 ing along wet bottom lands and especially such tracts as are inundated 

 during the spring freshets. 



PHYSICAL PROPERTIES. Wood light, hard (but soft as compared with 

 the Hard Maple), rather brittle, strong, compact, easily marked, and on 

 account of its very fine grain susceptible of an exceedingly smooth polish. 

 It soon perishes on exposure. The heart-wood is of a reddish-brown 

 color and the sap-wood a delicate creamy white, sometimes flushed with 

 brown. Specific Gravity, 0.5269; Percentage of Ash, 0.33; Relative Ap- 

 proximate Fuel Value, 0.5252; Coefficient of Elasticity ', 110973; Modulus 

 of Rupture, 1019; Resistance to Longitudinal Pressure, 482; Resistance 

 to Indentation, 181; Weight of a Cubic Foot in Pounds, 32.84. 



USES. Sometimes used for interior finishing, flooring, etc. and valu- 

 able for wooden-ware, turned work, etc. It makes very good charcoal, 

 and the bark, with copperas as a mordicant, makes a purple-black dye. 

 Maple sugar is sometimes made from the sap of this tree, but it is esti- 

 mated that it requires about twice as much sap to yield a given quantity 

 of sugar as does the sap of the Sugar Maple, though the sugar is very light 

 color and excellent flavor. 



The tree is a valuable and popular shade tree for streets of villages 

 and cities, though not casting as dense a shade as does the Sugar 

 Maple. 



MEDICINAL PROPERTIES. None are ascribed to this species. 



NOTE. In this species we find occasionally that interesting freak of 

 nature in which the fibres, for some unexplainable reason, develop spi- 

 rally, and the result is a waved or corrugated surface when the timber is 



