634 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



7. Acer Floridanum, Pax. Sugar Maple. 



(Acer Saccharum, var. Floridanum, Silva N. Am. xiii. 7.) 



Leaves rounded, truncate or slightly cordate at the broad base, 3-5-lobed, with 

 short obtuse or acute entire or lobulate lobes, when they unfold sparingly hairy on 

 the upper and hoary-tomentose on the lower surface, and at maturity inembrana- 

 ceous, dark green and lustrous above, pale and pubescent below, l^'-3' in diameter, 

 and prominently 3--5-nerved, with stout spreading lateral veins and conspicuous 

 reticulate veinlets, turning yellow and scarlet in the autumn before falling; their 

 petioles slender, glabrous, or pubescent becoming glabrous, 1^-3' long, with enlarged 

 bases nearly encircling the branchlet. Flowers appearing with the leaves on slen- 

 der elongated sparingly hairy ultimately glabrous pedicels, in many-flowered droop- 

 ing nearly sessile corymbs; calyx campanulate, yellow, about \' long, persistent 



under the fruit, the short lobes ciliate on the margin, with long pale hairs; corolla 0. 

 Fruit green, sparingly villose until fully grown, usiially becoming glabrous, with 

 spreading occasionally erect wings '-f ' long; seeds smooth, bright red-brown, about 

 \' long. 



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

 and spreading branches, and slender glabrous branchlets, light green at first, becom- 

 ing rather light red-brown during their first season, and covered with minute pale 

 lenticels; usually smaller, and westward generally a low shrub. Winter-buds obtuse, 

 about -jj-' long, with dark chestnut-brown obtuse scales and bright rose-colored linear- 

 spatulate inner scales often V 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 swamps, southern Georgia and western Florida to Louisi- 

 ana, southern Arkansas, and eastern Texas, and westward on the banks of streams 

 usually as a shrub to the valley of the upper Rio Cibolo, Texas, and on the Sierra 

 Madre of Nuevo Leon. 



8. Acer nigrum, Michx. Black Maple. 



Leaves generally 3 or occasionally 5-lobed, with acute or acuminate lobes, 

 undulate and narrowed from broad shallow sinuses, or rarely furnished with short 



