The Maples 



much to make our walks through such a wood delightful. With 

 the viburnums and the ground hemlocks they spread their leafy 

 branches "amidst the cool and silence," and the sun rarely 

 looks in upon them. 



The Mountain Maple (Acer spicaium, Lam.) is usually 

 shrubby in habit; very rarely it reaches 30 feet in height, and a 

 maximum trunk diameter of 6 to 8 inches. Its green bark is not 

 striped, a character which at any season distinguishes it from 

 the striped maple. The lobes of its leaves are taper pointed, and 

 their margins coarsely saw-toothed. The petioles are long and 

 slim and scarlet throughout the summer. The flowers are small, 

 greenish yellow with long, narrow petals; they are clustered in 

 racemes that stand erect in the axils of the fully-expanded leaves. 

 The fruits hang in clusters, the little samaras but slightly divergent, 

 and showing clear red in the summer. In autumn they are brown, 

 while the foliage takes on brilliant shades of yellow and scarlet. 

 After the leaves fall the grey, downy twigs are bright with the 

 winter buds only. 



The Striped Maple, or Moosewood (Acer Pennsylvanicum, 

 Linn.) grows from a shrub to a tree 40 feet high, best always in 

 the shade of taller trees and usually in rocky woods that cover 

 mountain slopes. It has green bark that breaks as the stems 

 increase in diameter into a network of furrows, which expose a 

 pale under layer, and make the green appear to be delicately 

 striped with white. Sometimes the stripes are dark brown. 



The leaf of this maple is unusually large, often 6 inches in 

 length. It is about as broad as it is long, with three triangular 

 lobes, whose points form the leaf's broad apex. There are faint 

 suggestions of two basal lobes sometimes, but not always. The 

 margin is finely serrate, and the petiole grooved. In the autumn 

 the leaves turn yellow. The yellow, bell-like flowers in long, 

 pendulous racemes appear among the leaves in May. The 

 samaras are larger than those of the mountain maple, and the 

 wings in each pair are more widely divergent. 



The striped maple is most brilliant in colouring when its 

 bud scales lengthen in late April, and the rosy, down-covered 

 leaves appear. The stems and unfolding shoots are delicate and 

 beautiful enough to repay an artist for making a pilgrimage each 

 spring to the place where this budding maple blushes unseen. 

 It is hard to make people believe that all this exquisiteness of 

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