Silver Maple 



645 



The samaras are smooth, 2 to 3 cm, long, the erect or more or less divergent wings 

 8 to 13 mm. wide. 



8. SILVER MAPLE Acer saccharinum Linnaeus 

 Acer dasycarpiim Ehrhart 



Preferring sandy river-banks, the Silver maple, or Soft maple as it is often 

 called, ranges from New Brunswick to southern Ontario and South Dakota, south- 

 ward to Florida, Missouri, and the Indian Territor}-, attaining a maximum height 

 of about 40 meters and a trunk diameter of 

 about 1.4 meters. It is also known as River 

 maple. Water maple. White maple and Creek 

 maple. 



The brown bark of old trunks splits frecl}- 

 into thin scales, that of the hmbs and young 

 trunks is smooth and gray; the young twigs are 

 green and smooth, but early become brown. 

 The leaf-stalks are long and slender, the leaf- 

 blades nearly orbicular in outhne, bright green 

 on the upper side, nearly w^hite and often silvery 

 beneath, hairy on the under side when young, 

 but both surfaces smooth at maturity; they are 

 5-lobed to beyond the middle, the lobes pointed, 

 coarsely and sharply toothed, or again lobed. 

 The flowers appear in earliest spring in dense 

 clusters much ahead of the leaves, the sterile and ^''^- 595- - Silver Maple, 



fertile ones in separate clusters, sometimes both on the same tree, sometimes on 

 different trees; they are greenish yellow or reddish; there are no petals; the calyx 

 has 5 short teeth and in the sterile flowers is nearly tubular with the stamens pro- 

 jecting far beyond it, but in the fertile flowers it is cup-shaped and not longer than 

 the stamens, the ovary- being densely hair\'. The young samaras are hair}', but 

 soon become smooth and more or less divergent; when ripe they are 5 to 7 cm. 

 long with a wing 1.8 mm. wide or less. 



The Silver maple is one of the most rapid-growing trees, and is used in large 

 quantities for street planting, the brittleness of its wood being its only drawback 

 for this purpose; violent summer gales will sometimes strew the ground with its 

 branches. A number of varieties have been propagated and extensively planted 

 for ornamental purposes. 



The wood is hard, brittle, light brown, with a specific gravity of 0.53, and is 

 used for furniture and to a Hmited extent in carpentr}^ A small amount of maple 

 sugar is locally made from the sap. 



