.

=Habit.=--A handsome tree, 50-60 feet in height; trunk 2-5 feet in
diameter, separating a few feet from the ground into several large,
slightly diverging branches. These, naked for some distance, repeatedly
subdivide at wider angles, forming a very wide head, much broader near
the top. The ultimate branches are long and slender, often forming on
the lower limbs a pendulous fringe sometimes reaching to the ground.
Distinguished in winter by its characteristic graceful outlines, and by
its flower-buds conspicuously scattered along the tips of the
branchlets; in summer by the silvery-white under-surface of its deeply
cut leaves. It is among the first of the New England trees to blossom,
preceding the red maple by one to three weeks.

=Bark.=--Bark of trunk smooth and gray in young trees, becoming with age
rougher and darker, more or less ridged, separating into thin, loose
scales; young shoots chestnut-colored in autumn, smooth, polished,
profusely marked with light dots.

=Winter Buds and Leaves.=--Flower-buds clustered near the ends of the
branchlets, conspicuous in winter; scales imbricated, convex, polished,
reddish, with ciliate margins; leaf-buds more slender, about 1/8 inch
long, with similar scales, the inner lengthening, falling as the leaf
expands. Leaves simple, opposite, 3-5 inches long, of varying width,
light green above, silvery-white beneath, turning yellow in autumn;
lobes 3, or more usually 5, deeply cut, sharp-toothed, sharp-pointed,
more or less sublobed; sinuses deep, narrow, with concave sides; base
sub-heart-shaped or truncate; stems long.

=Inflorescence.=--March to April. Much preceding the leaves; from short
branchlets of the previous year, in simple, crowded umbels; flowers
rarely perfect, the sterile and fertile sometimes on the same tree and
sometimes on different trees, generally in separate clusters,
yellowish-green or sometimes pinkish; calyx 5-notched, wholly included
in bud-scales; petals none; sterile flowers long, stamens 3-7 much
exserted, filaments slender, ovary abortive or none: fertile flowers
broad, stamens about the length of calyx-tube, ovary woolly, with two
styles scarcely united at the base.

=Fruit.=--Fruit ripens in June, earliest of the New England maples. Keys
large, woolly when young, at length smooth, widely divergent,
scythe-shaped or straight, yellowish-green, one key often aborted.

=Horticultural Value.=--Hardy in cultivation throughout New England. The
gra