MAPLE FAMILY 
knows a good thing when he finds it, for the young and ten- 
der shoots are filled with saccharine juice, which he fully 
appreciates, 
It is now well known by botanists that the headquarters 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 pennsylvanicum., 
MOUNTAIN MAPLE 
Acer spicdtum. 
A bushy tree sometimes thirty feet high, more often a shrub. 
Flourishes in the shade and forms much of the undergrowth of the 
forests. Ranges from lower St. Lawrence River to northern Min- 
nesota and region of the Saskatchewan River; 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 
brown. 
IVood.—Pale reddish brown, sapwood paler; light, soft, close- 
grained. Sp. gr., 0.5330; weight of cu. ft., 33.22 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, palmately-lobed, sometimes slightly 
five-lobed; conspicuously three-nerved with prominent veinlcts. 
Four to five inches long, cordate or truncate at base, serrate ; lobes 
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- 
neecious, greenish yellow; small, borne in upright, slightly com- 
pound, long, hairy, terminal racemes, five to six inches long; the 
sterile at the end of the raceme and the fertile at the base. Pedicels 
thread-like. 
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