MAPLE FAMILY 



Slaiiiens. — Seven or eight in the staminate flowers, rudimentary 

 in the pistillate. Hypogynous ; filaments short; anthers introrse, 

 two-celled ; cells opening longitudinally. 



Pistil. — Rudimentary in staminate flowers. In pistillate flowers, 

 ovary superior, purplish brown, downy, two-celled, compressed con- 

 trary to the dissepiment, wing-margined ; style short ; stigmas two, 

 recur\ed and spreading ; ovules two in eacli cell, one of which aborts. 



Fruit. — Two samaras united forming a maple key. Borne in long 

 drooping racemes, smooth, with thin spreading wings three-fourths to 

 an inch long: on one side of each nutlet is a small cavity. Seeds dark 

 reddish brown. September. Cotyledons thin, irregularly plicate. 



This maple is a mountain tree. It has no special economic 

 value, but its beauty is its sufficient " excuse for being." The 

 delicate and exquisite coloring of opening foliage is too often 

 lost upon the heedless observer, unless 

 something appears so striking that it 

 cannot be ignored. l!ut in the spring- 

 time this dryad of a tree, slender, deli- 

 cate, clotlied in a misty rosy sheen of 

 buds and opening leaves, compels every 

 passer-l)y to admire 

 its beauty. Later its 

 yellow flowers hang in 

 long, graceful, droop- 

 ing racemes and are 

 succeeded by large 

 showy keys with pale 

 green, divergent 

 wings. Its leaves are 

 the largest of all our 

 maples. 



The New England 

 name IMoosevvood re- 

 fers to the fact that 

 the bark and branch- 

 lets are the favorite 

 food of the moose. 

 Emerson says that in their " winter beats " this tree is 

 always found completely stripped. Evidently the moose 



62 



Keys of Striped Maple, Acer pcnnsylvanicuni. 



