82 
MOUNTAIN SUGAR MAPLE. 
Plate LXVIII. 
A twig of the natural size, a . The fertile flowers, b. The male do. 
MOUNTAIN SUGAR MAPLE. 
ACER grandidentatum, leaves slightly cordate or truncate at the base, 
with a minute sinus ; pubescent beneath ; rather deeply 3-lobed, the 
sinuses broad and rounded ; lobes acute with a few sinuous indenta- 
tions ; corymb nearly sessile, few flowered ; the pedicels nodding ; fruit 
glabrous, with small diverging wings. Nutt all in Torrey and Gray, 
Flora, N. Amer. 1, p. 247. A . barbatum ? Dougl. in Hook. Flora, 
Bor. Amer. 1. c. (not of Michaux.) 
This species, nearly related to the Common Sugar 
Maple, occurs in the high valleys of the Rocky Mountains, 
nearly in the same situations with the Currant Leaved 
species, forming small groves by themselves, remarkable 
for the delicate paleness of their verdure, and filling, appa- 
rently, situations occupied by scarcely any other forest 
trees but the trembling and large toothed Poplars. They 
never attain the magnitude of the true Sugar Maple, all 
that we saw being mere saplings of 18 to 20 feet high, 
and but little thicker than a man’s leg, with a smooth pale 
bark. The leaves are also smaller, as well as the winged 
capsules, and the leaves, when adult, are still rather softly 
hairy beneath, and with both surfaces nearly of the same 
colour ; the pedicels and base of the calyx are also hairy. 
From the affinities of this species, there can be little doubt 
but that it might be employed, as far as it goes, for all the 
purposes to which the Sugar Maple is applicable, and pro- 
bably in some of the richer and lower lands, it may attain 
a sufficient grow'th for economical purposes. 
This species is, doubtless, the Acer barbatum of Douglas, 
