CHAP. XXII, ^CERA CEiE. A CER. 423 



Branches and corolla purple. Fruit woolly. There are plants of this spe- 

 cies in the garden of the London Horticultural Society, the leaves of 

 which, as will be seen by our^g. 128., are strikingly distinct. The plants 

 appear to be rather tender, and we would recommend them to be tried, in 

 the first instance, against a wall. 



ft 15. A. erioca'rpum Michx. The hairy-fruited, or white, Maple. 



Identification. Michx. FI. Amer. Bor., 2. p. 213. ; Don's Mill., 1. p. 650. 



Synonymes. A. dasycarpum WiUd. Spec, 4. p. 985. ; A. tomentbsum Hort. Par.; A. glaucum 

 Marsh.; A. virginianum Duh.; A. rubrum Wagenh. ; white, or soft, Maple, United States; Sir 

 Charles Wager's Maple ; E'rable a Fruits cotonneux, or E'rable blanc, Fr. ; rauher Ahorn, Ger. 



Engraving. Desf. Ann. Mus., 7. t. 25. ; Tratt. Arch., 1. No. 8. ; out Jig. 129. in p. 456. ; and the' plate 

 of this species in our Second Volume. 



Spec. Char., fyc. Leaves truncate at the base, smooth and glaucous beneath, 



palmately 5-lobed, with blunt recesses, and unequally and deeply toothed 



lobes. Flowers conglomerate, on short pedicels, apetalous, pentandrous. 



Ovaries downy. (Don's Mill., i. p. 650.) A large tree, with pale greenish 



yellow seeds, and flowers tinged with pale pink. They are produced in 



April and May ; and seeds are ripened by midsummer, from which plants 



may be raised the same year. Introduced by Sir Charles Wager, in 1725. 



Description. The trunk of the white maple is low, and divides itself into 



a great number of limbs, so divergent, that Michaux says they form a head 



more spacious, in proportion to the size of the trunk, than that of any other 



tree with which he is acquainted. The tree blooms early in the spring : its 



flowers are small and sessile, with a downy ovarium. The fruit is larger than 



that of any other species which grows east of the Mississippi. It consists of 



two capsules joined at the base, each of which encloses one roundish seed, 



and is terminated by a large, membranous, falciform wing. In Pennsylvania, 



it is ripe about the 1st of May ; and a month earlier on the Savannah river, 



and in Georgia. At this period the leaves, which have attained half their 



size, are very downy underneath : a month later, when fully grown, they are 



perfectly smooth. They are opposite, and supported by long petioles ; they 



are divided by deep sinuses into 4 lobes, are toothed on the edges, of a bright 



green on the upper surface, and of a beautiful white beneath. The foliage, 



however, is scattered, and leaves an open thoroughfare to the sunbeams. 



" The young leaves, and young germs, are very downy ; but the old leaves, 



and perfect fruit, are glabrous." (Hook, Fl. Amer., p. 1 14.) The wood of 



this maple is very white, and of a fine grain ; but it is softer and lighter than, 



that of the other species in the United States, and, from its want of strength 



and durability, is little used. (Michaux, p. 215.) In the United States, as 



well as in England, this species is often confounded with A s cer rubrum, 



which, in the leaves, it nearly resembles ; but it differs in its inflated woolly 



fruit, expressed in the terms eriocarpum and dasycarpum, and in its flowers, 



which are produced in small compact axillary groups, and are almost, or 



quite, sessile; while those of A. rubrum are produced in axillary groups on 



peduncles of irregular length (the shortest being about 1 in., and the longest 



about 2 in.), and are succeeded by smooth compressed fruits. 



Geography. A. eriocarpum, in the Atlantic parts of the United States, 

 commences on the banks of Sandy River, in the district of Maine ; and those 

 of the Connecticut, near Windsor, in Vermont, are its most northern points. 

 But, like many other trees, it is pinched by the rigorous winters of this lati- 

 tude, and never reaches the size which it attains a few degrees farther south. 

 It is found on the banks of all the rivers which flow from the mountains to 

 the ocean ; though it is less common along the streams which water the 

 southern parts of the Carolinas and of Georgia. In no part of the United 

 States is it more multiplied than in the western country ; and nowhere is its 

 vegetation more luxuriant than on the banks of the Ohio, and of the great 

 rivers which empty themselves into it. There sometimes alone, and some- 

 times mingled with the willow, which is found along all these waters, it con- 

 tributes singularly, by its magnificent foliage, to the embellishment of the 

 scene. The brilliant white of the leaves beneath forms a striking contrast 



