630 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



4. Acer circinatum, Pursh. Vine Maple. 



Leaves almost circular in outline, cordate at the base by a broad shallow sinus, 

 or sometimes almost truncate, palmately 7-9-lobed occasionally nearly to the middle, 

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

 nerved, with prominent veinlets, when they unfold tinged with rose color and puberu- 

 lous, especially on the lower surface and on 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; their petioles stout, grooved, l'-2' long, clasping the 

 stem by their large bases. Flowers appearing when the leaves are about half 

 grown, in loose 10 20-flowered umbel-like corymbs pendent on long stems from the 

 ends of slender 2-leaved branchlets, the staminate and pistillate flowers produced 

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

 the greenish white broadly cordate petals folded together at the apex; stamens 6-8, 

 with slender filaments villous at the 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, 

 iy long, spreading almost at right angles, red or rose color like the carpels in 

 early summer, ripening late in the autumn; seeds smooth, pale chestnut- brown, 



A tree, rarely 30-40 high, often vine-like or prostrate, with a trunk 1CX-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 lenti- 

 cels; often a low wide-spreading shrub. Winter-buds |' long, rather obtuse, with 

 thin bright red outer scales rounded on the back and obovate-spatulate inner scales, 

 rounded at the apex, contracted into long narrow claws, bright rose-colored and 

 more or less pubescent, especially on the outer surface, and when fully grown often 

 2' long and $' 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 sap wood; used for fuel, 

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

 the bows of their fishing-nets. 



