OREGON MAPLE 



(Acer Macrophyllum) 



BOTANISTS prefer to call this tree broadleaf maple. The name is 

 not inappropriate, as its extraordinarily broad leaves constitute the 

 most striking feature of the tree where it stands in the woods. The 

 leaf is usually wider than it is long. Some exceed a foot in both measure- 

 ments. Bigleaf maple is not an uncommon name for the tree in Oregon, 

 where it attains its highest development hi damp valleys where the soil 

 is good. The name white maple is not particularly descriptive of any 

 feature of the tree, though the name is applied in both Oregon and 

 Washington. In California it is known simply as maple. There is 

 small likelihood in that region that it will be confused with any other 

 member of the maple household ; nor is there much danger of such a thing 

 hi any part of the Pacific coast, for, though four species of maple occur 

 there, no one of them bears close enough resemblance to this one to be 

 mistaken for it. 



The Oregon maple's range north and south covers twenty degrees of 

 latitude. In that particular it is not much surpassed, if surpassed at 

 all, by any maple of this country. Its northern limit lies in Alaska, its 

 southern dose to the Mexican boundary, in San Diego county, Cali- 

 fornia. Its range east and west is restricted. It has a width of about 

 one hundred and fifty miles hi California, where it grows from the coast 

 to the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. An altitude of 5,600 

 feet appears to be the limit of its range upward. It attains altitudes 

 above 5,000 feet at several points in the Sierra Nevada range. It 

 descends nearly to sea level. Its geographical range is similar to the 

 ranges of several other Pacific coast species which occupy long ribbons 

 of territory stretching north and south parallel with the coast of the 

 Pacific ocean. 



This maple's leaves change to a clear reddish-yellow before falling. 

 Flowers appear after the leaves are grown, and the seeds ripen late in 

 autumn. Some of them hang until late in winter, but the habit varies hi 

 different parts of the range, as is natural in view of its great extension 

 north and south. The trees which stand in open ground are very abun- 

 dant seeders, but those in dense stands produce sparingly, hi that par- 

 ticular following the habit of most trees. This maple often grows in 

 dense, nearly pure stands in Oregon and Washington where soil and 

 other conditions are favorable. 



The sizes and forms of Oregon maple vary greatly. John Muir 

 spoke of forests whose trees were eighty or one hundred feet high, so 



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