53. ACER RUJBRUM RED MAPLE. 15 



ORDER SAPINDACE2E : SOAPBERRY FAMILY. 



Leaves simple or compound. Flowers poiypetalous, often irregular and mostly 

 symmetrical; sepals and petals each 4-5, imbricated in the bud, the petals inserted 

 with the 5-10 stamens on a perigynous or hypogynous disk; ovary 2-3-celled and 

 lobed, usually 1-2 ovules, in each cell, embryo mostly convoluted; no albumen. 

 Fruit a membranous, inflated pod, a leathery, thick, subsphericalpod, with nut-like 

 seeds, or a winged samara. 



GENUS ACER, TOURN.* 



Leaves opposite, simple, palmately-veined and 5 or occasionally 3-lobed (com- 

 pound in Negundo); stipules none. Flowers small, in axillary racemes or corymbs, 

 regular, dioecious or polygamo-dioecious, usually unsymmetrical; pedicels not jointed; 

 sepals 5 (or 4-9), more or less united, colored; petals sometimes wanting, but when 

 present 5 (or 4-9), equal and furnished with short claws; stamens, commonly 8; 

 ovary 2-lobed, formed of 2 united carpels, each bearing 2 ovules, only one of which 

 commonly attains maturity; styles 2, long and slender, united only below and stig- 

 matic down the inside. Fruit a double samara, finally separating when mature and 

 ready to fall, the wings strengthened by a rib along one margin; cotyledons long and 

 thin. 



(Ancient Latin name of the Maple.) 



53. ACER RUBRUM, L. 



RED MAPLE, SWAMP MAPLE, SOFT MAPLE, RED- FLOWERED MAPLE. 



Ger., Rotlier Ahorn ; Fr., Erable rouge ; Sp., Arce rojo. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: Leaves 3-5-lobed with acute sinuses, lobes acute and 

 irregularly serrate-toothed, whitish and sometimes pubescent beneath, usually more 

 or less heart-shaped at base. Flowers (April) much preceding the leaves, in lateral 

 fascicles with short erect pedicels, usually bright, red; petals linear-oblong; stamens 

 much longer than the petals; ovaries smooth. Fruit on prolonged drooping pedicels, 

 smooth, mostly red, with wings not widely divergent and about 1 in. in length. 



(Rubrum is the Latin for red, descriptive of the color of flowers, etc.) 



A tree sometimes attaining the height of 80 ft. (24 m.) and 4 ft. (1.20 m.) 

 or more in thickness of trunk, with smooth, blnish-gray bark which with 

 age becomes cleft into loose longitudinal ridges. It is the first tree of its 

 region to betoken, with its early flowers, the approach of spring. The 

 buds swell before the snow has entirely disappeared, and soon the red 

 twigs and flowers together give the tree a very conspicuous appearance. 

 When in full leaf it is also a beautiful tree, and on the approach of au- 

 tumn, before the appearance of frost often, the foliage assumes bright 

 orange and red tints which make it one of the most striking, in appear- 

 ance, of our forest trees. 



HABITAT. Canada and Eastern United States generally, growing 

 along streams subject to inundation, and in swamps, but occasionally 

 on drier uplands. 



PHYSICAL PROPERTIES. Wood moderately heavy, hard and elastic, 

 close-grained, compact and taking a very smooth polish. It is of a 



* As here defined, the genus includes Negundo, ranked by some authors as a separate 

 genus and differing from Acer proper in the leaves being compound and flowers dioecious. 



