442 AMERICAN FOREST TREES 



Though this tree is more a curiosity than a lumberman's asset, it is not 

 without value. Handle makers use 10,000 feet of it a year in the 

 state of Washington. It is shaved and turned for ax and shovel 

 handles. It has two-thirds the strength and less than half the stiffness 

 of eastern hard maple. The tree grows slowly and the annual rings are 

 very narrow and indistinct. Seventy or eighty years are required to 

 produce a trunk five inches hi diameter. The wood is hard, and checks 

 badly in seasoning. The bark is very pale brown suggesting the color 

 of a potato sprout that has grown in a dark cellar. The Indians liked 

 the wood for fish net bows, though there appears to have been no very 

 good reason why they preferred it to other woods of the region. Its 

 most extensive use at present is as fuel, but it is not particularly sought 

 after. The tree's future is not promising. Under domestication it does 

 not take on its fantastic, moldy, moss-grown form, and its forest growth 

 will never be encouraged by lumbermen. 



DWARF MAPLE (Acer glabrum) is one of the smallest of the maples, 

 but in a north and south direction its range is equal to that of any other. 

 Its southern limit is among the canyons of Arizona, and its northern on 

 the coast of Alaska within six or seven degrees of the Arctic circle. It 

 extends to Nebraska, and is found east of the continental divide far 

 north in British America. It reaches its largest size on Vancouver 

 island and on the Blue mountains in Oregon. It here is large enough to 

 make small sawlogs, but it is usually shrubby in other parts of its range. 

 It grows from sea level in Alaska to 9,000 feet altitude among the Sierra 

 Nevada mountains of California. Two forms of leaf occur. One is 

 three-lobed; the other is a compound leaf, the lobes having formed 

 separate leaves. The bright upper surface of the leaf gives the species 

 its botanical name. The seeds have large, wide wings. It cannot be 

 ascertained that the wood of this maple has ever been used for anything. 



