ANACARDIACE^E 



661 



purple, and orange. Flowers- opening gradually and in succession in early summer, the 

 pistillate a week or ten days later than the staminate, on slender pedicels from the axils of 

 small acute pubescent bracts, in dense panicles, with a pubescent stem and branchlets, and 

 acuminate bracts \' to nearly 2' long and deciduous with the opening of the flowers; panicle 

 of the staminate flowers 8'-12' long and 5 '-6' broad, with wide-spreading branches and 

 nearly one third larger than the more compact panicle of the pistillate plant; calyx-lobes 

 acute, covered on the outer surface with long slender hairs, much shorter than the petals 

 in the staminate flower, and almost as long in the pistillate flower; petals of the staminate 

 flower yellow-green sometimes tinged with red, strap-shaped, rounded at apex, becoming 

 reflexed above the middle at maturity; petals of the pistillate flower green, narrow and 

 acuminate, with a thickened and slightly hooded apex, remaining erect; disk bright red 

 and conspicuous; stamens slightly exserted, with slender filaments and large bright orange- 

 colored anthers; ovary ovoid, pubescent, the 3 short styles slightly connate at base, with 

 large capitate stigmas, in the staminate flower glabrous, much smaller, unusually rudimen- 



Fig. 597 



tary. Fruit fully grown and colored in August and ripening late in the autumn in dense 

 panicles 6'-8' long and 2'-3' wide, depressed-globose, with a thin outer covering clothed 

 with long acrid crimson hairs and a small pale brown bony stone; seed slightly reniform, 

 orange-brown. 



A tree, occasionally 35-40 high, with copious white viscid juice turning black on ex- 

 posure, a slender often slightly inclining trunk occasionally 12'-14' in diameter, stout 

 upright often contorted branches forming a low flat open head, and thick branchlets cov- 

 ered with long soft brown hairs gathered also in tufts in the axils of the leaflets, becoming 

 glabrous after their third or*fourth year, and in their second season marked by large nar- 

 row leaf-scars and by small orange-colored lenticels enlarging vertically and persistent for 

 several years; more frequently a tall shrub, spreading by underground shoots into broad 

 thickets. Winter-buds conic, thickly coated with long silky pale brow r n hairs, about |' 

 long. Bark of the trunk thin, dark brown, generally smooth, and occasionally separating 

 into small square scales. Wood light, brittle, soft, coarse-grained, orange-colored, streaked 

 with green, with thick nearly white sapwood. From the young shoots pipes are made for 

 drawing the sap of the Sugar Maple. The bark, especially that of the roots, and the 

 leaves are rich in tannin. A form with narrow deeply divided leaflets (f . dissecta Rehdr.) 

 occasionally occurs. 



Distribution. Usually on uplands in good soil, or less commonly on sterile gravelly 

 banks and on the borders of streams and swamps, New Brunswick and through the valley 



