XI. The Sugar Maple 



The sugar maple is one of the most abundant trees in the 

 Chautauqua Grounds and, unlike many other plants, its beauty 

 is proportionate to its abundance here. In the olden days of 

 the stave bucket and the sumac " spile," the grove on these 

 Grounds would have been prosaically termed a " sugar bush," 

 and thought of in terms of " sap," " boiling," "siruping down," 

 " sugaring off " and pounds of " cake." As Mrs. Comstock 

 reminiscently remarks 



" The old caldron kettle is broken, or lies rusting in the 

 shed. In its place, in the new-fangled sugar-houses, are evapo- 

 rating vats, set over furnaces with chimneys. But we may as 

 well confess that the maple syrup of to-day seems to us a pale 

 and anaemic liquid, lacking the delicious flavor of the rich dark 

 nectar which we, with the help of cinders, smoke and various 

 other things, brewed of yore in the open woods." 



The technical name for sugar maple is Acer Saccharum, 

 Acer being derived from a Celtic word meaning " hard," (re- 

 ferring to the hardwood, and Saccharum referring to the sugar 

 juice). This maple is often called Rock or Hard Maple, to 

 distinguish it from the Silver or Soft Maple. The tree is 

 easily recognized by its leaves. They are arranged in pairs 

 on the twigs, that is, opposite (the beech, for example, has 

 alternate leaves). The maple leaf is 3 to 5 inches long and 

 is broader than long. There are five spreading lobes (some- 

 times 3 or 7) separated from each other by rounded incisions. 

 The two lower lobes are smaller and shorter than the others. 

 Each lobe tapers to a slender point. The very young leaves 

 are reddish-tawny and are covered with a fine wool or down, 

 but these characters soon disappear. When full grown they are 

 dark green on the upper surface and pale green on the lower; 

 (compare with silver maple, whose leaves are silvery white 

 underneath). The petioles or stems of the leaves are often 

 reddish. 



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