SILVER MAPLE. 51 



Glycobius speciosns, Say, a borer destroys the trees by girdling 

 them' or penetrating the wood, and young specimens are killed by 

 a timber beetle, Corthylus punctatissimns, Ziram., which enters 

 and mines the stem at or near the surface of the ground. 



The leaves are 3 to 5-lobed, with rounded notches, heart-shaped 

 at the base, smooth above, and glaucous beneath The greenish- 

 yellow flowers occur in umbel-like clusters, appearing with the 

 leaves in the spring. The winged fruit is an inch in length. 

 The purple winter-buds are pointed, i inch in length. The sugar 

 maple has a tap-root and numerous strong lateral roots. 



The wood is heavy, hard, strong, close-grained, tough, and takes 

 a good polish. The heartwood is light brown ; the thin sapwood, 

 of 30 or 40 layers of annual growth, somewhat lighter. It is 

 more valuable than the wood of any other American maple, and 

 is largely used as fuel, for interior finish, furniture, and turnery, 

 in ship-building, for the handles of tools, saddle-trees, shoe-lasts, 

 shoe-pegs. Curled and bird's-eye maple are highly prized for 

 cabinet work. Maple sugar is produced chiefly from this tree, 

 and its ashes mstke a valuable fertilizer. 



Acer saccharinum, Linnaeus.* 

 (silver maple, maple, soft maple.) 



A large tree, with upright main branches and pendulous 

 branchlets, and reddish-brown scaly bark, reaching a height of 

 120 and a diameter of 4 feet. 



It grows in rich soil, and is most common west of the Alleghany 

 mountains. It occurs from New Brunswick to Ontario, southward 

 to western Florida, westward to eastern Dakota, eastern Nebraska, 

 the valley of the Blue river, Kansas and the Indian Territory, 

 reaching its best development in the basin of the lower Ohio river. 



In this State, where it is not very common, it occurs in the 

 upper part of the Piedmont plateau and in the mountains along 

 streams and in cool situations, and attains a height of 30 to 50 

 and a diameter of 1 to 2 feet. 



*Acer dasycarpum, Ehrh. 



