684 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



A tree, occasionally 40 high, with a short trunk 12'-18' in diameter, small upright 

 branches and slender bright red-brown branchlets. 



Distribution. Coast of southern Alaska (head of Lynn Canal), southward near the coast 

 to Vancouver Island and western Washington, and eastward on the high mountains of 

 Washington to the Blue Mountains of eastern Oregon, western Idaho and northern Mon- 

 tana; on Loomis Creek, Natrona County, Wyoming. 



2. Acer circinatum Pursh. Vine Maple. 



Leaves almost circular in outline, cordate at base by a broad shallow' sinus, or some- 

 times almost truncate, palmately 7-9-lobed occasionally nearly to the middle, with acute 

 lobes sharply and irregularly doubly serrate, and conspicuously palmately nerved, with 



Fig. 616 



prominent veinlets, when they unfold tinged with rose color, and puberulous, especially 

 on the lower surface and >pn the petioles, and at maturity glabrous with the exception of 

 tufts of pale hairs in the axils of the large veins, thin and membranaceous, dark green above, 

 pale below, and 2'-7' in diameter; in the autumn turning orange and scarlet; petioles stout, 

 grooved, l'-2' in length, clasping the stem by their large base. Flowers appearing when 

 the leaves are about half grown, in loose 10-20-flowered umbel-like corymbs pendent on 

 long stems from the end of slender 2-leaved branchlets, the staminate and pistillate flowers 

 produced together; sepals oblong to obovate, acute, villose, purple or red, much longer than 

 the greenish white broad, cordate petals folded together at apex; stamens 6-8, \vith slender 

 filaments villose at base, exserted in the staminate flower, much shorter than the petals in 

 the pistillate flower; ovary glabrous, with spreading lobes, in the staminate flower reduced 

 to a small point surrounded by a tuft of pale hairs; style divided nearly to the base into 

 long exserted stigmas. Fruit with thin wings, 1|' long, spreading almost at right angles, 

 red or rose color like the nutlets in early summer, ripening late in the autumn ; seeds smooth, 

 pale chestnut-brown, |'-|' long. 



A tree, rarely 30-40 high, often vine-like or prostrate, with a trunk 10'-12' in diameter, 

 and glabrous pale green or reddish brown branchlets frequently covered during their first 

 winter with a glaucous bloom, and occasionally marked by small lenticels; often a low 

 wide-spreading shrub. Winter-buds f ' long, rather obtuse, with thin bright red outer scales 

 rounded on the back, and obovate-spatulate inner scales rounded at apex, contracted into 

 a long narrow claw, bright rose-colored and more or less pubescent, especially on the outer 

 surface, and when fully grown often 2' long and \ f broad. Bark of the trunk thin, smooth, 

 bright red-brown, marked by numerous shallow fissures. Wood heavy, hard, close-grained, 

 not strong, light brown, sometimes nearly white, with thick lighter colored sapwood; used 



