MAPLE FAMILY 



S/amens. — Three to seven, hypogynoiis ; filaments long and slen- 

 der in the sterile flowers, short ni the fertile. Anthers reddish, ob- 

 long, tno-celled ; cells opening longitudinally. 



Pistils. — In sterile flowers rudimentary ; in fertile, ovary borne on 

 narrow disk, superior, downy, two-lobed, two-celled, compressed 

 contraiy lo the dissepiment, wing-margined ; styles two, united at 

 base otily, long, e.xserted, red ; o\ules two in each cell, one usually 

 aborts. 



Fruit. — Tuo samaras united forming a maple key. Borne on 

 slender drooping pedicels an inch and a half to three inches long. 

 Vary in length from one and one-half to three inches. Wings di- 

 vergent, straight or curved, three-fourths of an inch broad, deep 



Staminate and Pistillate Flowers of Silver Maple, -. '/C'-r saccluiiiiium. 



red or pale chestnut brown Seed reddish brown. April, May. 

 Cotyledons thin, leaf-like. Seed germinates as soon as it falls to 

 the ground. 



Tiic seed of Ul'?- usually ripens in the autunm nnrl gcnninates the fol- 

 lowing spring. The seed of the two American species with ]:)rccocious flowers, 

 ,-/. rubrum and .4. .Sncihaynnnn, however, ripens at the end of a few weeks after 

 the trees flower, and germinates at on'-e. This is a provision, perhaps, acquired 

 by these species to insure their perpetuation ; they grow in low, wet land, often 

 inundated during the winter, and the seed, if it ripened in the autumn would 

 often lie in the wafer througVi the winter nnrl Ije in danger of losing its vitality ; 

 but it reaches the ground after the water has fallen in the swamps and before 

 the exposed surface of the ground has become Vjaked by the hot sun of summer, 

 that is, when it is just in the condition to insure the germination of seed. 



— CriAkLEs S. Sargent. 



74 



