692 



TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



sparingly villose until fully grown, usually becoming glabrous, with spreading occasionally 

 erect wings f '-' long; seeds smooth, bright red-brown, about 1' long. 



A tree, occasionally 50-60 high, with a trunk rarely 3 in diameter, small erect and 

 spreading branches, and slender glabrous or more or less densely villose-tomentose (var. 

 villipes Rehdr.) branchlets, light green when they first appear, becoming rather light red- 

 brown during their first season, and covered with minute pale lenticels; usually smaller. 

 Winter-buds obtuse, about |-' long, with dark chestnut-brown obtuse scales and bright 

 rose-colored linear-spatulate inner scales often 1' long when fully grown. Bark of the trunk 

 thin, smooth, pale, becoming near the base of old trees thick, dark, and deeply furrowed. 



Distribution. River banks and low wet woods, southeastern Virginia (near McKinney, 

 Dinwiddie County, W. W. Ashe), valley of the Roanoke River near Weldon, Halifax 

 County, North Carolina, and southward to southern Georgia and western Florida to La- 

 fayette County; near Selma, Dallas County, Alabama; West Feliciana Parish and through 

 western Louisiana to eastern Texas (Harrison and St. Augustine Counties), and southern 

 Arkansas (Fulton, Hempstead County) ; the var. fillipes near Raleigh, Walker County, 

 North Carolina, Calhoun Falls, Abbeville County, South Carolina, Shell Bluff on the 

 Savannah River, Burke County, Cuthbert, Randolph County, and Columbus, Muscogee 

 County, Georgia; River Junction, Gadsden County, Florida, and on the San Luis Moun- 

 tains, southern New Mexico (A. brachypterum Woot. & Stanl.). 



Sometimes planted as a shade-tree; the prevailing tree in the streets and squares of 

 Raleigh, North Carolina. 



8. Acer grandidentatum Nutt. Sugar Maple. 



Leaves cordate or truncate at base, 3-lobed by broad shallow sinuses, the lobes acute or 

 obtuse, entire or slightly lobulate, sparingly hairy on the upper surface and thickly coated 



Fig. 624 



with dense paletomentum on the lower surface when they unfold, and at maturity thick and 

 firm, dark green and lustrous above, pale and pubescent below, especially on the stout nerves 

 and veins, or rarely glabrous, 2'-5' in diameter; turning in the autumn before falling yellow 

 and scarlet; petioles stout, l'-2' in length, glabrous, often red after midsummer, encircling 

 the branchlet with their large base villose on the inner surface. Flowers appearing with 

 the leaves on long slender drooping villose pedicels, in short-stalked corymbs; calyx cam- 

 panulate, yellow, sparingly hairy with long pale hairs, about j' long, with broad rounded 

 lobes, often persistent under the fruit; corolla 0; stamens 7 or 8, much longer than the calyx, 

 in the pistillate flower shorter than the calyx; ovary usually glabrous, with long spreading 



