398 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, smooth, reddish-brown or dark green, conspicu- 

 ously 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 — brownish. 



LEAP-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-like 

 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 shade 

 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 the 

 forests; New Hampshire and Vermont — common in highland woods; 

 Massachusetts — common in the western and central sections, rare 

 towards the coast; Connecticut — occasional in the northwestern part of 

 the state, becoming rare eastward and southward, reaching Ashford. East 

 Haddam. Huntington and Redding; Rhode Island — frequent northward. 



AVOOD — Light, soft, close-grained, light brown with thick lighter 

 colored sapwood of 30-40 layers of annual growth. 



