MAPLE FAMILY 



knows a good thing when he finds it, for the young and ten- 

 der shoots are filled with saccliarme juice, which he fully 

 appreciates. 



It is now well known bv botanists that the headt]uarters of 

 the maples is not in America, but in Asia. North America 

 has but nine species, China and Japan have over thirty. It 

 is estimated that fully one-third of the deciduous forests of 

 Japan is composed of different species of maples. Professor 

 Sargent records that among these maples is one barely dis- 

 tinguishable from our Acer pcuiisylvaniatiii. 



MOUNTAIN MAPLE 



Atcr spuatutu , 



A bushy tree sometimes thirty feet high, more often a shrub. 

 Flourishes in the shade and torms much of the undergrowth of the 

 forests. Ranges from lower St. Lawrence River to northern Min- 

 nesota and region of the Saskatchewan Ri\er; south through the 

 northern states and along the Appalachian Mountains to Georgia. 

 Roots fibrous. 



Bark. — Reddish brown, slightly furrowed. Branchlets terete, 

 at first gray and downy, then reddish, later, gray again and at last 

 bronn. 



Wood. — Pale reddish brown, sapwood paler ; light, soft, close- 

 grained. Sp. gr., 0.5330; weight of cu. ft., i^ 22 lbs. 



Winter Buds. — Terminal flower bud an eighth of an inch long, 

 tomentose ; leaf buds smaller, acute, red ; scales enlarge when 

 spring growth begins ; the inner scales lengthen until they are an 

 inch or more long, become pale and papery before they fall. 



Leaves. — Opposite, simple, palniately-lobed, sometimes slightly 

 five-lobed ; conspicuously three-nerved with prominent veinlets. 

 Four to five inches long, cordate or truncate at base, serrate ; lolses 

 acute or acuminate. They come out of the bud pale green, very 

 woolly on the under surface ; when full grown are smooth above 

 and covered with whitish down beneath. In autumn they turn 

 scarlet and orange. Petioles long, slender, with enlarged base, 

 scarlet in midsummer. 



Flowers. — June, after the leaves are full grown. Polygamo-mo- 

 noecious, greenish yellow; small, borne in upright, slightlv com- 

 pound, long, liairy, terminal racemes, five to six inches long ; the 

 sterile at the end of the raceme and the fertile at the base. Pedicels 

 thread-like. 



64 



