Handbook of Trees of the JSToetheew States and Canada. 



329 



The Mountain Maple is the most diminutive 

 of our eastern Maples, as it rarely if ever at- 

 tains a greater size than 25 or 30 ft. in height 

 with a trunk 6 or 8 in. in diameter, and is 

 commonly rather a large shrub than a tree. 

 It is rarely ever found isolated, as it seems to 

 require the moist rich loam and shade of the 

 forest, and does not grow naturally away from 

 them. 



It is probably the most abundant of the 

 shrubs and small trees that clothe the banks 

 of mountain streams and overhang their spark- 

 ling waters throughout the northern states and 

 Canada. Their comelj' leaves and upright 

 stems of pale flowers are as intimately asso- 

 ciated with these retreats in early summer as 

 the songs of the Hermit-Thrush and Catbird 

 which live within their shade, and in autumn 

 it is an object of special beauty, its orange 

 and red leaves being only surpassed by the 

 brilliancy of its drooping clusters of scarlet 

 keys. 



The wood is little used save as an humble 

 contribution to the wood pile for fuel. A 

 cubic foot when absolutely dry weighs 33.22 

 lbs. 



Leaves palmatcly .S-Iobed or slightly 5-lobed, 

 cordate or truncate at base the acute or acumi- 

 nate lobes coarsely crenate-serrate with pointed 

 teeth, membranous, conspicuously reticulated, 

 glabrous above, pubescent beneath ; petioles 

 slender, reddish. Flowers (.Tune) about % in. in 

 diameter in erect many-flowered long-stemmed 

 pubescent compound racemes ; calyx greenish yel- 

 low ; petals linear-spatulate, yellow and longer 

 than the calyx lobes ; stamens 7-8, exserted in the 

 staminate flowers ; ovary hoary tomentose ; style 

 columnar. Fruit: sameras glabrous with broad 

 divergent red wings and fully grown by mid- 

 summer. 



