SUGAR MAPLE. 
101 
and the Ashes, many species more deserving of his care. The Sugar Ma- 
ple also will be preferred, which grows on uplands, and possesses in as 
superior degree all the good properties of the other. From these consid- 
erations, the Red-flowering Maple appears to have no pretensions to a 
place in European forests.* 
PLATE XLL 
A branch with leaves of the natural size. Fig. 1, Barren flowers. Fig, 2, 
Fertile Flowers. Fig. 3, Seeds of the natural size. 
SUGAR MAPLE, 
Acer sacchartnum. A. foliis quinque-partito-palmatis, glabris, margine 
mtegris, sublus glands: Jloribus pedu7iculatis, pendentibus. 
This species, the most interesting of the American Maples, is called 
Rock Alaple, Hard Maple, and Sugar Alaple. The first of these names is 
most generally in use, but I have preserved the last, because it indicates 
one of the most valuable properties of the tree. 
According to my father’s researches into the topography of American 
vegetables, the Sugar Maple begins a little north of Lake St. John, in 
Canada, near the 4Sth degree of latitude, which, in the rigor of its winter, 
corresponds to the 68th degree in Europe. It is nowhere more abundant 
than between the 46th and 43d degrees, which comprise Canada, New 
Brunswick, Nova Scotia, the States of Vermont and New Hampshire, and 
the District of Maine ; in these regions it enters largely into the composi- 
tion of the forests with which they are still covered. Further south, it is 
common only in Genesee, in the State of New York, and in the upper 
parts of Pennsylvania. It is estimated by Dr. Rush, that, in the northern 
parts of these two States, there are ten million of acres which produce 
these trees in the proportion of thirty to an acre. Indeed, I have noticed, 
in traversing these districts, large masses of woods formed of them almost 
exclusively. In Genesee, however, a great part of the Alaples belong to a 
* [See Emerson’s Trees and Shrubs of Massachusetts for some additional particulars, and for 
remarks on the autumnal color of leaves, in which it is asserted that frost has very little influ- 
ence on them.] 
