The leaves of the Norway Maple remain on the tree considerably later than those 
native maples, and the key fruits form no small part of the tree’s decorative value 
panels at the sides show the Sycamore Maple 
All the Maples 
THE APPEARANCE AND CHARACTERISTICS OF THE 
COMMON AMERICAN MAPLE TREES —HOW TO 
KNOW THEM APART—WHAT THEY ARE GOOD FOR 
Photographs by the author 
I T is a strange thing how dull we used to think botany was 
when we had to study it in school — and a stranger thing 
how insistent becomes the hunger for information regarding 
plants and trees and flowers in later life, when the hunger comes 
actually from within instead of from our parents or a conscientious 
school board. I sometimes think that the reason why the subject 
did not appeal to many of us at the start was that they used to 
make it so tinder dry. We had calyxes and corollas and such 
unthinkable things forced down our young throats until we associ¬ 
ated these things with the dull pages of our text books instead of 
with the living, growing things in the woods and fields. I do 
not know whether modern teaching has repaired this grievous 
fault or not — 1 sincerely hope it has, for I shall never cease to 
regret the barren years when 1 did not know an oak from a beech, 
nor care, for that matter. What a keen sense of pleasure it does 
bring, to recognize old friends by their leaves and bark and winter 
buds, or to make new ones by the same tokens. 
Take the maple trees, for example. Do you really know 
whether that one that shades your sidewalk is a Silver Maple or a 
Norway Maple? Would it not interest you to become better 
acquainted, provided you do not have to know a whole lot of 
technical details about pistils and glandular teeth 
and samaras? 1 think it would, which is my reason for 
writing this article. 
There are eight distinct kinds of maples to be found 
growing comfortably in this eastern country of ours, 
not to mention the little Japanese maples whose 
crimson foliage is coming to be such a decorative 
feature of our lawns and shrubbery borders. These 
common maple trees that everyone ought to know 
are: the Mountain Maple, the Striped Maple or Moose- 
wood, the Sugar Maple or Rock Maple, the Silver or 
White Maple, the Red Maple, the Ash-leaf Maple or 
Box Elder, the European Sycamore Maple, and the 
Norway Maple. And it is not the hardest thing in 
the world to know these, one from another, by means 
of their leaves, their winged nut fruits or their bark, 
so that you will never again have to say, indefinitely, 
“There is a maple tree — or is it a pin oak?” 
In the first place, only three of our important tree families 
have their leaves one opposite the other — the maples, the ash 
trees and the horse-chestnuts. If the leaves are simple (each 
leaf surface complete in itself) rather than compound (consisting 
of several leaflets on a common stem), the tree is a maple. If 
the leaves are not to be had, look at the winter buds and twigs. 
1 he buds of the maple are small, and the scars left by the fallen 
leaves are small, narrow crescents. Horse-chestnut buds are 
large and waxy, the leaf scars resembling a horse’s hoof prints; 
ash buds are dull and blunt, with rough, leathery scales. Of 
the twigs, those of the latter two tree families are stout and 
clumsy; those of the maples are slender. 
Those of you who spend your vacations in the mountains, 
particularly those of New England, have seen the Mountain Maple 
at home, even if you have not recognized it. It is a small, shrub¬ 
like tree, found along every highway and bordering the brooks 
and lakes. Together with its mountain brother, the Moosewood 
or Striped Maple, it forms a most prominent part of the under¬ 
woods, usually more abundant than the latter variety. It 
seldom reaches a height of more than twenty or twenty-five feet, 
and, from its mountain-loving character, is mainly a Northern 
Sycamore Maple. Ash-leaved or Box Elder. Norway. Silver 
The leaf is sufficient evidence to identify the varieties 
(i7 2 ) 
