532 NEW ENGLAND TREES IN WINTER. 



STRIPED MAPLE 



Moosewood, Whistlewood. 



Acer pennsylvanicum L. 



HABIT A shrub or small tree 15-30 ft. high with a short trunk 5-10 

 inches in diameter and slender straight branches, forming in northern 

 New England a large part of the underbrush and a favorite food of 

 moose and deer whence the name of Moosewood. 



BARK Rather thin, reddish-brown or dark green, conspicuously- 

 streaked longitudinally with narrow white lines, at length dark gray, 

 often transversely warty. 



TWIGS Stout, smooth, red or green; year's growth marked by two 

 circles formed by scars of the two outer pairs of bud-scales. LENTI- 

 CELS inconspicuous. PITH brown. 



LEAF-SCARS Opposite; wide, broadly V-shaped; their adjacent edges 

 nearly meeting and forming a pair of short stubby teeth separated by 

 a more or less well developed decurrent ridge. BUNDLE-SCARS 3, 

 generally more or less compounded forming often 5 to 7 separate 

 bundle-scars. 



BUDS Distinctly stalked, 6-10 mm. long exclusive of the rather long- 

 stalk, tapering to a blunt tip, red, shining, more or less 4-sided; terminal 

 bud larger than appressed lateral buds. BUD-SCALES the thick, red, 

 single, outer pair only visible, enclosing an inner pair of thick pale- 

 hairy scales, within which are enclosed one or more pairs of thin green 

 scales. 



FRUIT In long drooping terminal racemes with thin widely spread- 

 Ing wings; 2-2.5 cm. long, seed-like portion rather long with a pit-lik* 

 depression on one side; the elongated racemes from which the fruit 

 has fallen often remaining on tree throughout winter. 



COMPARISONS Easily distinguishable at all times from all other 

 Maples by the striking white streaks in the young bark which appear 

 often as early as the second year (see photograph of twig) and persist 

 even on comparatively old trunks. The large stalked buds are also- 

 characteristic. The brown pith of the twig and the one-sided pitting 

 of the seed-like portion of the fruit are characters which distinguish 

 the Bush Maples (i.e. the Mountain and the Striped) from our other spe- 

 cies of the genus. Forms of the genus Viburnum, which are for the most 

 part shrubs, resemble somewhat the Bush Maples but, aside from 

 having drupe-like fruits, may generally be easily distinguished by 

 bud characters: some having naked, others scurfy buds, some with 

 the first pair of scales shorter than the bud and some with the second 

 pair of scales smooth. 



DISTRIBUTION Cool, rocky or sandy woods, usually in the shad* 

 of other trees. Nova Scotia to Lake Superior; south on shaded moun- 

 tain slopes and in deep ravines to Georgia; west to Minnesota. 



IN NEW ENGLAND Maine abundant, especially northward in th& 

 forests; New Hampshire and Vermont common in highland woods; 

 Massachusetts common in the western and central sections, rar& 

 towards the coast; Rhode Island frequent northward. 



IN CONNECTICUT Rocky woods in rich soil; occasional in th* 

 north western part of the state, becoming rare eastward and south- 

 ward, reaching Ashford, East Haddam, Huntington and Redding. 



WOOD Light, soft, close-grained, light brown with thick lighter 

 colored sapwood of 30-40 layers of annual growth. 



