in seasoning, loses nearly half of its weight. It is sometimes used in cabinetmaking, instead of the holly or other light-coloured wood, for inlaying furniture of mahogany, cherry-tree, and black walnut; though it is less suitable for this purpose, as it soon changes colour by exposure to light. Wooden bowls are also made of it, when that of ash, or tulip-tree cannot be obtained. The charcoal of this wood is preferred by hatters and dyers to every other, as it affords a heat more uniform, and of longer duration. The sap is in motion earlier in this species than in the sugar maple, beginning to ascend, in the middle states, about the 15th of January; so that, when it is employed for making sugar, the operations are sooner completed. Like the sap of the red-flowered maple, it yields not more than one-half the product of sugar, from a given measure, as that of the Acer saccharinum. Its inner bark produces a black precipitate with copperas, (sulphate of iron,) and is sometimes employed in domestic dyeing.

The Acer eriocarpum is highly prized as an ornamental tree, both in Europe and America, on account of the rapidity of its growth, the graceful, divergent direction of its branches, the beauty of its leaves, and the profusion of its early flowers. It is admirably adapted for overspreading artificial ponds, or other waters, with a mirror-like surface, where the lover of nature can calmly admire the brilliant white of the leaves beneath, which he may contrast, with pleasure, with the bright-green above.

13

Derivations. The specific name, rubrum, is derived from the Latin, ruber, red, having reference to the colour of the fowers, fruit, and young shoots of this tree. The other names have chiefly the same signification as the botanical one.

Engravings. Michaux, North American Sylva, pl. 41; Audubon, Birds of America, pl. liv. et lxvii.; Loudon, Arboretum Britannicum, i., figure 130; p. 457, et v., pl. 39; and the figures below.

Specific Characters. Leaves cordate at the base, glaucous beneath, deeply and unequally toothed, palmately 5-lobed, with acute recesses. Flowers conglomerate, 5-petaled, pentandrous. Ovaries smooth.-Don, Miller's Dict.

Description.

HE Acer rubrum, whether
in flower or in foliage,
like its congeners, is a
beautiful tree. Although

it neither attains the size nor the height of the
sugar maple, it much resembles that tree in its
general appearance; but it may be easily distin-
guished from it by its trunk, which, when young,
is more profusely marked with broad, pale-yellow
lichens. In open situations, it often ramifies at
the ground, and assumes the form of several
small trees, growing in a clump. The bark, in
such situations, is usually of a darker colour, and
smoother, when young, than it is on trees grow-
ing in shady woods. When the tree is old, how-
ever, the epidermis of the trunk, like that of the
liquidambar, and white oak, becomes brown,
chapped, and deeply furrowed. The ordinary
height of this species does not exceed fifty or

sixty feet; but in favourable situations, as in the maple swamps in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, it often attains a height of seventy or eighty feet, with a trunk three or four feet in diameter. The blossoms of this tree are the first that announce the return of spring. It flowers near St. Mary's, in Georgia, from the 20th to the last of February, and five or six weeks later near Philadelphia and New York. The flowers, which are of a beautiful purple or deep-red, unfold more than a fortnight before the leaves. They are small, aggregate, and are situated at the extremity of the branches. The fruit is suspended by long, flexible peduncles, and is of the same hue of the flowers; though it varies in size and in the intensity of its colouring, according to the exposure and dampness of

the soil. The keys and seeds are at least one-half smaller than those of the Acer eriocarpum, and ripen two or three weeks earlier. The leaves are also smaller than those of that species, and in some respects resemble them. They are glaucous and whitish underneath; palmated or divided into three moderately acuminate lobes, irregularly toothed; but they are longer than they are broad, usually rounded at the base, with two small lobes, or large teeth below the lateral lobes. The extremities of this tree, which are formed by numerous twigs united at the base, and when garnished with flowers and fruit of a deep-red, before vegetation has generally begun to revive, presents a very singular and grand appearance.

Varieties. The Acer rubrum has long been confounded by British authors with the Acer eriocarpum; but whether they are only varieties or races of the same species, or not, there is a marked difference between them, both in the habit of their growth and the colour of their flowers. The principal distinction, however, consists in the fruit of the Acer eriocarpum being woolly, and that of the Acer rubrum being smooth.

There are two varieties, however, among cultivators, known by the name of A. r. coccineum, and A. r. intermedium, which differ so slightly from the Acer rubrum, as hardly to be worthy of notice. The leaves of the former variety are somewhat redder in spring, when they expand, than those of the species.

Geography and History. The natural habitat of the red-flowered maple, towards the north, according to Michaux, begins about Malebaye, in Canada, in forty-eight degrees of latitude, where it is sparingly found; but in proceeding southward, it soon becomes more common, and abounds in Florida and Lower Louisiana. It also grows beyond the Rocky Mountains, on the authority of Mr. Douglass, at the sources of the Oregon.

This tree was first cultivated in England by Mr. John Tradescant, jun., in 1646, at South Lambeth, near Vauxhall; and since that time, it has been propagated in the principal European nurseries, but less extensively than the Acer eriocarpum.

There are several recorded trees of this species, both in Britain and in Ireland, which, in 1835, had arrived at nearly their maximum height. In Surrey, on an eminence, in the arboretum at Milford, a tree is mentioned, as being forty feet high, which, in autumn, when its leaves assume a dark-red colour, looks like a column of scarlet, and is seen from a great distance all round the country. At Woodstock, in Kilkenny, Ireland, there is a tree, which, at sixty years planted, was fifty feet in height.

In France, in the botanic garden at Toulon, there is a tree of this species, which, in forty-five years after planting, attained the height of twenty-nine feet. In Saxony, at Wörlitz, an Acer rubrum attained the height of fifty-five feet in sixty-five years after planting.

In Bavaria, at Munich, a tree of this species is mentioned which attained the height of forty feet in twenty-four years.

Soil, Situation, Propagation, &c. "Of all the trees which flourish in grounds which are occasionally overflowed," says Michaux, "this species is most multiplied in the middle and southern states. It occupies, in great part, the borders of creeks, and abounds in all the swamps, which are often inundated, and always miry." In these situations it is accompanied by the Nyssa biflora villosa, (black gum,) Liquidambar styraciflua, Carya squamosa, (shell-bark hickory,) Quercus prinus discolor, (swamp white oak,) Fraxinus a. sambucifolia, (black ash,) and the Fraxinus a. quadrangulata (blue ash.) To these are added, in Carolina and Georgia, the Magnolia glauca, Quercus aquatica, (water oak,) Gordonia lasianthus, (loblolly bay,) Nyssa biflora, (sour gum,) and the Laurus carolinensis (red bay.) "It is a remarkable fact," continues Michaux, "that, west of the

mountains, between Brownville and Pittsburg, the red-flowering maple is seen growing on elevated ground, with the oaks and the walnuts; but in such situations, it does not attain such ample dimensions, as in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. In these states exist extensive marshes, called maple swamps, exclusively covered with it." Elliot observes that, in "descending the mouths of our large rivers, the red maple is the last tree found in the swamps, diminishing in size as the soil becomes impregnated with salt, until it dwindles down to a shrub, and mingling with the Myrica cerifera, (candlebery myrtle,) and the Baccharis halimifolia, it finally disappears."

This species, when cultivated, contrary to the general character of the maples, is said to thrive best in moist soil, which must, however, at the same time, be rich; and for the tree to attain a large size, the situation should be sheltered. In Britain it is chiefly propagated by layers; but on the continent, almost always by seeds, which ripen before midsummer, even sooner than those of the Acer eriocarpum, and, if sown immediately, they will come up the same season. The seeds, however, do not keep well, even when mixed with earth; and in general, but a small proportion of those vegetate which are sent from the United States to Europe.

Insects. The insects which attack this species are the same as those which prey upon the Acer eriocarpum.

It

Properties and Uses. The wood of the Acer rubrum, when dry, weighs fortyfour pounds to a cubic foot, and when green, it is soft, full of aqueous matter, and loses in drying nearly one-half of its weight. In this tree, as in others which grow in wet places, the sap-wood bears a large proportion to the heart-wood, the latter of which consists of an irregular column, star-like in its transverse section, and occupies the central part of large trunks, with its points projecting into the sapwood. This wood has but little strength, is liable to injury from insects, and ferments, and speedily decays, when exposed to the alternations of moisture and dryness. Yet it is solid, and for many purposes, is preferred by workmen, to other kinds of wood. It is harder than that of the white maple, and of a finer and closer grain ; hence it is easily wrought in the lathe, and acquires, by polishing, a glossy and silky surface. It is principally employed in the manufacture of chairs, saddle-trees, shoe-lasts, ox-yokes, broom-handles, and various other articles of domestic use. sometimes happens that, in very old trees, the grain of the wood, instead of following a perpendicular direction, is undulated; and this variety bears the name of curled-maple. This singular arrangement is never found in young trees, nor even in the branches of such as exhibit it in the trunk; it is also less conspicuous in the centre of the tree than near the bark. Trees offering this disposition, however, are rare. The serpentine direction of the fibres, which renders this wood difficult to split and to work, produces, in the hands of a skilful mechanic, the most beautiful effects of light and shade. These effects are rendered more striking, if, after smoothing the surface of the wood with a double-ironed plane, it is rubbed with a little sulphuric acid, and afterwards with linseed oil. On examining it attentively, the varying shades are found to be owing entirely to the inflection of the rays of light; which is more sensibly perceived in viewing it in different directions by candle-light. Before mahogany became generally fashionable in the United States, the best furniture in use was made of the redflowered maple, and bedsteads are still made of it, which in richness of lustre, exceed those of the finest imported woods. But one of the most constant uses to which the curled-maple is applied, is for the stocks of rifles and fowling-pieces, which, to elegance and lightness, unite toughness and strength, the result of the tortuous direction of the fibres. The cellular matter of the inner bark is of a dusky-red. By boiling, it yields a purplish coloured liquor, which, with the addition of sulphate of iron, (copperas,) acquires an intense dark-blue, or black,

and is sometimes employed as ink, by American youth in village schools. For this purpose, however, it is very inappropriate, as it never dries properly, and in damp weather, the writing becomes glutinous and blots. A fluid prepared in a similar manner, by adding sulphate of alumina, (common alum,) instead of copperas, is also used for dyeing black. The French Canadians make sugar from the sap of this maple, which they call plaine; but, as in the preceding species, the product of a given measure, is not more than one-half as great as that of the sugar maple.

In Britain, and throughout Europe, the sole use of the Acer rubrum is as an ornamental tree; and, whether it is viewed in the beauty of its flowers and opening leaves in early spring; or admired for its red fruit in the beginning of summer, and its crimsoned foliage in autumn, it deserves to be ranked as one of the most ornamental of hardy trees.

Engravings. Loudon, Arboretum Britannicum, i., figure 131, p. 458; et v., pl. 41; and the figure below.

Specific Characters. Leaves cordate, 3-lobed; lobes almost entire, and equal. Corymbs few-flowered, pendulous. Fruit smooth, with the wings hardly diverging.-Loudon, Arboretum.

T

Description.

HE Acer monspessulanum is a low tree or shrub, thirty or forty feet in height; native of France, Spain, and Italy; grows chiefly on rocky, exposed situations; and introduced into Britain in 1739. The trunk is covered with a reddish-brown bark. The leaves are chiefly threelobed, with an entire margin, of a dark-green colour, and bear a general resemblance to those of the Acer campestre, which are about the same size, but of a paler green, and five-lobed; in mild seasons, they remain on the trees a great part of the winter, more especially in France. The flowers are produced just before the leaves, in May; they are pendulous, and grow in corymbs, one from almost every bud, and consist of from six to ten flowers; they are of a pale-yellow colour, and form a great source of attraction to bees. The wood is hard and heavy, and is used in France by turners and cabinet-makers. It is much planted in that country for hedges, on account of the persistency of the leaves. In England, this tree may be considered as purely one of ornament. It is propagated either by seeds or layers, and well deserves a place in every collection, both in Europe and in America, wherever it will grow. In France, in the Jardin des Plantes, at Paris, there is a tree of this species, which had attained the height of fifty-five feet in one hundred and thirty years after planting.