Timber
All accounts agree in stating that the timber is softer, lighter, and weaker than that of the red or sugar maples, and in consequence is only used as an inferior substitute for these or other similar woods.
The sap of the silver maple is sometimes used to produce sugar in places where the sugar maple is not found, and Michaux says that though the quantity is only halt as much, yet the unrefined sugar is whiter and more agreeable to the taste than common maple sugar. (H.J.E.)
ACER SACCHARUM, Sugar Maple
- Acer saccharum,! Marshall, Arbust. Am. 4 (1785); Sargent, Trees N. Amer. 632 (1905); Trelease, Missouri Bot. Garden Report, v. 88 (1894).
- Acer saccharinum, Wangenheim, Nordam. Holz. 26 (1787) (Not Linnæus); Loudon, Arb. et Frut. Brit. i, 411 (1838).
- Acer barbatum, Michaux, Fl. Bor. Am. ii. 252 (1803); Sargent, Silva N. Amer. ii, 97, t. 90 (1892).
A tree attaining in America 120 feet in height and 12 feet in girth. Bark grey and smooth on young stems, deeply furrowed on old trunks. Young branchlets glabrous, becoming brown in their first summer. Leaves (Plate 206, Fig. 12), about 5 inches long by 6 inches wide, usually five-, rarely three-lobed, cordate at the base; lobes triangular, acuminate, with one or two pairs of sinuate teeth; sinuses rounded and shallow, reaching about one-third the length of the blade; margin non-ciliate; upper surface dark green, glabrous; lower surface pale, dull, with pubescent tufts in the primary and secondary axils, elsewhere either glabrous or more or less pubescent; petiole without milky sap. Leafy stipules,? with bases adnate to the petiole, are occasionally developed in var. nigra of this species.
Flowers, monœcious or diœcious, appearing with the leaves, arising from terminal leaf-buds and from lateral leafless buds, in nearly sessile corymbs, greenish- yellow; pedicels long, thread-like, pubescent; petals absent; ovary with long scattered hairs. Fruit, ripening in autumn, glabrous; keys about an inch long; wings broad, thin, usually divergent.
This species in the form of the foliage somewhat resembles the Norway maple ; but is readily distinguishable by the pale colour of the leaves beneath, and the absence of milky sap in the petioles. In winter, the buds are conical, sharp-pointed, and pubescent, showing externally 8 to 14 scales; lateral buds shortly stalked; opposite pairs of leaf-scars not united around the stem, their upper margins fringed with yellowish hairs.
1 This is the name now adopted by Sargent, by Sudworth, Check List of Forest Trees of U.S. 91 (1898), and by other American botanists and foresters, Acer saccharinum, Wangenheim, is a later name, and must be dropped, especially as Acer saccharinum, Linnæus, is now commonly used in America for another species, the silver maple.
2 Gray, Amer. Naturalist, vi. 767 (1872), and vii. 422 (1873); and Sargent, Garden and Forest, iv. 148 f. 27 (1891).
