698 



TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



generally distributed trees of eastern North America, ranging between more degrees of 

 latitude than any other American tree; most abundant southward especially in the valley 

 of the Mississippi River, and of its largest size in the river swamps of the lower Ohio and 

 its tributaries; in the north often covering with small trees low wet swamps; on the sand 

 dunes and ridges of northern Michigan reduced to a low shrub. On var. tomentosum leave* 

 usually 5-lobed, cordate or rarely rounded at base, with glabrous or pubescent petioles 

 and branchlets; widely distributed but rare; near Cranberry Island, Buckeye Lake. 

 Licking County, Ohio, Biltmore, Buncombe County, North Carolina; neighborhood of 

 Augusta, Richmond County, Georgia; top of Flagstaff Mountain, Barclay, Talladega 

 County, Alabama; Panther Burn, Sharkey County, Mississippi; near Little Rock, Pulaski 

 County, Arkansas; near Page, Leflore County, Oklahoma, and Larissa, Cherokee County, 

 Texas; connected by trees of this variety with pubescent branchlets and winter-buds, and 

 broad-ovate 3-5-lobed slightly cordate leaves and pubescent petioles with 



Acer rubrum var. Drummondii Sarg. 



Leaves often broader than long, usually 5-lobed, cordate or truncate at base, 3'-6' long 

 and wide, with a stout midrib and veins, until nearly fully grown covered above with scat- 

 tered hairs and clothed below with thick snow-white tomentum, and more or less pubescent 



Fig. 629 



during the season; petioles stout, hoary-tomentose, U'-4' in length, becoming nearly 

 glabrous in the autumn. Flowers bright scarlet. Fruit ripening with or before the un- 

 folding of the leaves late in March or in April, bright scarlet, with convergent wings \\'-9,\' 

 long and |'-f ' wide. 



A tree, usually not more than 30-35 high, with small erect branches forming a narrow 

 head and slender branchlets coated when they first appear with matted pale hairs, becom- 

 ing glabrous and dark reddish brow r n in their second season. 



Distribution. Deep swamps, eastern Louisiana to the valley of the Neches River (Beau- 

 mont, Jefferson County, and Concord, Hardin County), eastern Texas and northward through 

 southern and eastern Arkansas to western Mississippi, western Tennessee and Kentucky, 

 southeastern Missouri (Butler, Stoddard, Dunklin and Mississippi Counties), southern Il- 

 linois (Gallatin, Pulaski and Richland Counties), and southwestern Indiana (swamp eighteen 

 miles west of Decker, Knox County, C. C. Deam). A form growing at Hattiesburg, For- 

 rest County, Mississippi, at Glen Gordon, Covington, St. Tammany Parish, and Chopin, 

 Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, near Beaumont, Jefferson County, Texas, and at Poplar 

 Bluff, Butler County, Missouri, with 3-lobed leaves rounded at base (f. rofundatum Sarg.) 

 shows in the shape of the leaves a transition from the var. Drummondii to 



