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The Maples 



9. RED MAPLE Acer rubrum Linnccus 



The Red maple, one of the most beautiful of American trees, grows naturally 

 all over the eastern United States and Canada from Nova Scotia to Georgia, and 

 perhaps to northern Florida, westward to Manitoba, Wisconsin, Missouri, and 

 Texas. It prefers wet soil, and often forms forests or groves in swampy lands, 

 but often occurs on hillsides. It attains a maximum height of about 40 meters 

 and a trunk diameter of about 1.5 meters. 



Fig. 596. Red Maple, New York Botanical Garden. 



The bark is not ver}' thick, that of young trunks being smooth and gray, that 

 of old trees darker in color, shaggy, separating in long plates or scales. The young 

 twigs are smooth and green, soon becoming red. The leaves are 1.5 dm. long or 

 less, long-stalked, broadly ovate or nearly orbicular in outHne, rather thin, usually 

 5-lobed, often 3-lobed, mostly rounded or subcordate at the base, at first more or 

 less hairy on the under side, but when mature usually nearly or quite smooth on 

 both surfaces, light green above, and pale green or whitish beneath; the lobes are 



