ce of its branches, the beauty of its foliage, and its rapid growth
make it a favorite ornamental tree. It attains its finest development
when planted by the margin of pond or stream where its roots can reach
water, but it grows well in any good soil. Easily transplanted, and more
readily obtainable at a low price than any other tree in general use for
street or ornamental purposes. The branches are easily broken by wind
and ice, and the roots fill the ground for a long distance and exhaust
its fertility.

[Illustration: PLATE LXXII.--Acer saccharinum.]

1. Leaf-buds.
2. Flower-buds.
3. Branch with sterile flowers.
4. Branch with fertile flowers.
5. Branch with sterile and fertile flowers.
6. Sterile flower.
7. Fertile flower.
8. Perfect flower.
9. Fruiting branch.

=Acer Saccharum, Marsh.=

_Acer saccharinum, Wang._ _Acer barbatum, Michx._

ROCK MAPLE. SUGAR MAPLE. HARD MAPLE. SUGAR TREE.

=Habitat and Range.=--Rich woods and cool, rocky slopes.

Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, westward to Lake of the Woods.

New England,--abundant, distributed throughout the woods, often forming
in the northern portions extensive upland forests; attaining great size
in the mountainous portions of New Hampshire and Vermont, and in the
Connecticut river valley; less frequent toward the seacoast.

South to the Gulf states; west to Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, and
Texas.

=Habit.=--A noble tree, 50-90 feet in height; trunk 2-5 feet in
diameter, stout, erect, throwing out its primary branches at acute
angles; secondary branches straight, slender, nearly horizontal or
declining at the base, leaving the stem higher up at sharper and sharper
angles, repeatedly subdividing, forming a dense and rather stiff spray
of nearly uniform length; head symmetrical, varying greatly in shape; in
young trees often narrowly cylindrical, becoming pyramidal or broadly
egg-shaped with age; clothed with dense masses of foliage, purple-tinged
in spring, light green in summer, and gorgeous beyond all other trees of
the forest, with the possible exception of the red maple, in its
autumnal oranges, yellows, and reds.

=Bark.=--Bark of trunk and principal branches gray, very smooth, close
and firm in young trees, in old trees becoming deeply furrowed, often
cleaving up at one edge in long, thick, irregular plates; season's
shoots at length of a shining reddish-brown, smooth, numerously
pale-dotted, turning gray the