696 



TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



A tree, 90-120 high, with a trunk 3-4 in diameter, generally dividing 10-15 from 

 the ground into 3 or 4 stout upright secondary stems destitute of branches for a consider- 

 able length, brittle pendulous branchlets light green and covered with lenticels when they 

 first appear, soon becoming darker, bright chestnut-brown, smooth and lustrous in the 

 autumn and winter of their first year, and in their second season pale rose color or gray 

 faintly tinged with red. Winter-buds I' long, with thick ovate bright red outer scales 

 rounded on the back, minutely apiculate, and ciliate on the margins, and acute inner 

 scales pubescent on the inner surface, becoming pale green or yellow and about 1' long. 

 Bark of young stems and large branches smooth and gray faintly tinged with red, becoming 

 on old trunks I'-f ' thick, reddish brown and more or less furrowed, the surface separating 

 into large thin scales. Wood hard, strong, close-grained, easily worked, rather brittle, 



fig. 627 



pale brown, with thick sapwood of 40-50 layers of annual growth; now sometimes used for 

 flooring and in the manufacture of furniture. Sugar is occasionally made from the sap. 



Distribution. Sandy banks of streams, rarely in deep often submerged swamps; valley 

 of the St. John's River (near Fredericton), New Brunswick, to that of the St. Lawrence in 

 Quebec, and southward through western Vermont and central Massachusetts to western 

 Florida, Alabama, and south central Mississippi, and westward Ithrough Ontario, New 

 York, Ohio, the southern peninsula of Michigan and southern Indiana to Minnesota, 

 southeastern South Dakota, and eastern Nebraska, and through Kentucky, Tennessee, 

 Missouri, eastern Kansas, northwestern Arkansas, and eastern Oklahoma; in western 

 Louisiana (swamp near Alexandria, Rapides Parish) ; rare in the immediate neighborhood 

 of the Atlantic coast and on the high Appalachian Mountains; probably of its largest 

 size in the valley of the lower Ohio River. 



Often cultivated with several forms differing in habit and in the lobing of the leaves; 

 fast-growing, and largely planted in the eastern states as a park and street tree. 



12. Acer rubrum L. Red Maple. Scarlet Maple. 



Leaves truncate, more or less cordate by a broad shallow' sinus, rounded or cuneate at 

 base, 3-5-lobed by acute sinuses, w y ith irregularly doubly serrate or toothed lobes, the 

 middle lobe often longer than the others, when they unfold pubescent especially beneath, 

 and at maturity light green and glabrous on the upper surface and white or glaucescent 

 and more or less pubescent or densely tomentose (var. iomentosum Kirch, [var. rubrocar- 

 pum Detmars]) on the lower surface, particularly along the principal veins, chartaceous or 

 sometimes almost coriaceous, H'-6' long and rather longer than broad; turning in the early 



