ACERACE^E 



685 



for fuel, the handles of axes and other tools, and by the Indians of the northwest ooast for 

 the bows of their fishing-nets. 



Distribution. Banks of streams; coast of British Columbia through western Washington 

 and Oregon to Mendocino County, and the canon of the upper Sacramento River, Cali- 

 fornia; one of the most abundant of the deciduous-leaved trees of western Washington and 

 Oregon up to altitudes of 4000 above the sea, and of its largest size on the rich alluvial 

 soil of bottom-lands, its vine-like stems in such situations springing 4 or 5 together from 

 the ground, spreading in wide curves and sending out long slender branches rooting when 

 they touch the ground and forming impenetrable thickets of contorted and interlaced 

 trunks, often many acres in extent; in California smaller and less abundant, growing along 

 streams in the coniferous forest or rarely on dry ridges up to an altitude of 4000 in the 

 northeastern part of the state. 



Occasionally cultivated as an ornamental plant in Europe, and in the eastern states, and 

 hardy as far north as eastern Massachusetts. 



3. Acer spicatum Lam. Mountain Maple. 



Leaves subcordate or sometimes truncate at base, conspicuously 3-nerved, 3 or slightly 

 5-lobed, with gradually narrowed pointed lobes, and sharply and coarsely glandular- 

 serrate, when they unfold puberulous on the upper surface and densely tomentose on the 



Fig. 61 7 



lower surface, and at maturity thin, 4 '-5' long and broad; turning in the autumn 

 to various shades of orange and scarlet; petioles slender, enlarged at base, 2'-3' in 

 length, often becoming scarlet in summer. Flowers opening in June after the leaves are 

 fully grown, f ' diameter, on slender pedicels |'-|' long, the pistillate toward the base and 

 the staminate at the apex of a narrow many-flowered long-stemmed upright slightly com- 

 pound pubescent raceme; calyx-lobes narrow-obovate, yellow, pubescent on the outer 

 surface, much shorter than the linear-spatulate pointed yellow petals; stamens 7 or 8, in- 

 serted immediately under the ovary, with slender glabrous filaments as long as the petals in 

 the sterile flower, about as long as the sepals in the pistillate flower, and glandular anthers; 

 ovary hoary-tomentose, reduced to a minute point surrounded by a tuft of pale hairs in 

 the staminate flower; style columnar, almost as long as the petals, with short stigmatic 

 lobes. Fruit fully grown and bright red or yellow in July, turning brown late in the au- 

 tumn, almost glabrous, with more or less divergent wings about \' long; seeds smooth, 

 dark red-brown, f ' long. 



A bushy tree, occasionally 25-30 high, with a short trunk 6'-8' in diameter, small up- 

 right branches, and slender branchlets light gray and pubescent when they first appear, 



