642 



TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



panulate in the staminate flower, much smaller in the pistillate flower and divided 

 to the base into 5 narrow sepals; corolla 0; stamens 4-6, with slender exserted 

 hairy filaments and long linear anthers surmounted by the point of the connective, 

 in the pistillate flower; ovary on a narrow rudimentary disk, pubescent, only partly 

 inclosed by the calyx; style separating from the base into 2 long stigmatic lobes. 

 Fruit attaining its full size early in the summer, pendent on stems l'-2' long, in 

 graceful racemes 6'-8' in length, ripening in the autumn, deciduous from the stems 

 persistent on the branches until the following spring, l^'-2' long, with narrow acute 

 nutlets diverging at an acute angle, and thin reticulate straight or falcate wings 

 undulate toward the apex; seeds narrowed at the ends, smooth bright red-brown, 

 % long. 



A tree, 50-70 high, with a trunk 2-A in diameter, dividing near the ground 

 into a number of stout wide-spreading branches, and slender branchlets pale green 

 and glabrous or slightly pubescent at first, marked in their first winter by a few 

 dark lenticels and bright green and lustrous or sometimes pale purple, with a glau- 

 cous bloom. Winter-buds: terminal, acute, |' long, rather longer than the obtuse 

 lateral buds, the outer scales often rudimentary and frequently coated with pale 



tomentum, those of the inner pairs accrescent, becoming V long at maturity, decidu- 

 ous, leaving conspicuous scars visible at the base of the branchlet for two or three 

 years. Bark of the trunk '-' thick, pale gray or light brown and deeply divided 

 into broad rounded ridges separating on the surface into short thick scales. Wood 

 light, soft, close-grained, not strong, creamy white, with thick hardly distinguish- 

 able sapwood; occasionally manufactured into cheap furniture, and sometimes used 

 for the interior finish of houses, for wooden ware, cooperage, and paper pulp. Small 

 quantities of maple sugar are occasionally made from this tree. 



Distribution. Banks of streams and lakes and the borders of swamps; western 

 Vermont and central New York, southward to northern Florida and westward to 

 the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains, and to Utah, New Mexico, and eastern 

 Arizona; rare east of the Appalachian Mountains; most common in the Mississippi 

 basin, and of its largest size in the valley of the lower Ohio River. Westward vary- 

 ing in the pubescence of the leaves and in the number of leaflets. An extreme 

 form is 



