XXXII. THE WHITE MAPLE. 487 
rapidly when dry, and, for this purpose, it is five eighths as 
valuable as rock maple, and about half as valuable as hickory. 
Bancroft says that the bark, when used with an aluminous 
basis, produces a lasting cinnamon color on wool and on cotton ; 
and with sulphate or acetate of iron, communicates to them a 
more intense, pure and perfect black than even galls, or any 
other vegetable substance known to him; and that the leaves 
produce effects nearly similar to the bark.* Darlington says 
that the bark affords a dark, purplish blue dye, and makes a 
pretty good bluish-black ink. For both these purposes, its use 
is well known in this State. The sap may, hke that of the 
other maples, be boiled down to sugar, but it is only half as 
rich in saccharine matter as that of the Sugar Maple. 
‘The Red Maple is of rapid growth, young trees increasing in 
diameter from two fifths to two thirds of an inch in a year,— 
older ones somewhat less;—the average may be not far from 
one quarter of an inch. Though it may be made to grow in 
any land not too dry, it flourishes and attains its largest size 
only in rich swampy land. 
It is found in Canada, and thence, southward to Florida, and 
westward to the sources of the Oregon. 
Sp. 2. Tse Wuite Marre. Acer ddsycarpum. Ehrenberg. 
Figured in Michaux, 1, 213, Plate 40, and Loudon’s Arboretum, V, 39 and 40. 
Along the sandy or gravelly banks of clear, lowing streams, 
the White Maple is found all through the middle and western 
parts of the State. I have not yet found it nearer to Boston 
than the Ipswich River and the Sudbury River, in Wayland 
and Sudbury. On the rich meadows on Connecticut River, and 
on the Nashua at Lancaster, where alone I have found it grow- 
ing in favorable circumstances, it expands with an ample spread 
of limb, forming a broad and magnificent, if not a lofty head. 
From the red maple, with which it is sometimes confounded, 
it may be easily distinguished by the silvery whiteness of the 
under surface of the leaves, and by the color of the spray. 
The young shoots are of a light green, inclined to yellow, with 
* Philoscphy of Permanent Colors, II, 272. 
