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The Maples 



I. MOUNTAIN MAPLE— Acer spicatum Lamarck 



More often a shrub than a tree, this plant grows in rocky woods from New- 

 foundland to James bay and Manitoba, south, especially along the mountains to 

 Georgia, Tennessee, Michigan, ai)d Minnesota. It sometimes attains a height 

 of about 10 meters, with a trunk diameter of about 2 dm. 



Its bark is thin and brown or grayish brown. The yoimg twigs are finely 



hairy, red in winter and brown in summer. The 

 leaves are quite thin, long-stalked, the blade 7 to 13 

 cm. long, and nearly or quite as wide, 3-lobed or 

 sometimes 5-lobed, usually cordate at the base, the 

 lobes pointed, coarsely toothed nearly all around with 

 gland-tipped teeth, very hairy beneath and somewhat 

 hairy above when young, but smooth on the upper 

 side and sparingly hairy beneath when mature. The 

 flowers are in long, upright hairy stalked compound 

 racemes at the ends of the branches, and open in 

 May or June after the leaves are nearly fully de- 

 veloped, the sterile flowers in the upper part of the 

 clusters, the pistillate ones below; the calyx is very 

 small and hairy; the yellow-green petals are linear- 

 FiG. 588. — Mountain Maple, spatulate, about 1.5 mm. long; the stamens of the 

 sterile flowers are longer than the petals, while those of the fertile ones about 

 equal the petals in length. The clusters of ripe red fruit droop; the samaras are 

 about 2 cm. long, their wings divergent or ascending, the seed-bearing part strongly 

 striated, the wing 6 to 8 mm. wide. 



The tree is too small for its wood to be of commercial importance; it has a 

 specific gravity of 0.53, and is brown. It is sometimes planted for ornament, but 

 needs shade of other trees for its successful cultivation in places where the sum- 

 mers are hot. 



2. STRIPED MAPLE — Acer penusylvamcnm Linnaeus 



The striped maple, perhaps more generally called Moosewood, because moose 

 and deer feed on its young shoots, is an inhabitant of woods and forests from 

 Nova Scotia through Quebec and Ontario to Michigan and Minnesota, extending 

 south, especially along the mountains, to Georgia and Tennessee. Like the 

 Moimtain maple it commonly flowers as a shrub; as a tree it reaches about 13 

 meters in height, with a trunk diameter of about 2.5 dm. 



The bark is thin and reddish green, striped with lighter colored bands or lines. 

 The young twigs are yellow-green in summer and red-brown in winter. The 

 leaves are large, often 2 dm. long, and nearly or quite as wide, broadest above- the 

 middle, thin, soon collapsing after being picked, 3-lobed at or above the middle, 



