axil-tufts. Cf. Plate 205, Fig.1. There are specimens of this variety at Kew; and a tree at Grayswood, near Haselmere, was about 30 feet high in 1906, and appeared to be very vigorous and thriving.
A considerable number of horticultural varieties are known:—
2. Var. variegatum.[1] Leaves with broad white margin. One of the most popular and most largely grown of all variegated trees. It originated as a chance branch sport in the nursery of M. Fromant at Toulouse in 1845; but remained almost unknown, till 1853, when it was awarded, at a horticultural show at Toulouse, a medal given by the Empress Eugenie.
3. Several other coloured forms are known, as var. aureo-maculatum, leaves spotted with yellow; var. aureo-marginatum, leaves with yellow margin; and var. auratum, leaves yellow.
4. Var. violaceum.[2] Young branchlets covered with a glaucous violet bloom.
5. Var. crispum.[3] Leaves variously cut and curled. According to Nicholson, this is not nearly so vigorous a grower as the type. (A.H.)
Distribution
This species is the most widely distributed of North American maples, extending in its typical form from Western Vermont and Central New York, southward to Northern Florida, and westward to the Rocky Mountains. According to Sargent, it is rare east of the Alleghany Mountains, and is commonest in the basin of the Mississippi, attaining its largest size in the valley of the lower Ohio. The biggest recorded, so far as we know, is one measured by Ridgway in the Wabash Valley, which was 60 feet high by 12 feet in girth. It is one of the few eastern trees, which is quite at home in the dry prairie region, and is found on most of the rivers of the great plains, and on the foot-hills of the Rocky Mountains, where it is usually a stunted and ill-shaped tree or bush, and rarely has a clean or straight stem. Slightly modified, as regards the amount of pubescence on the leaves and branchlets, it occurs in Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Eastern Arizona. Var. californicum is met with in California in the valley of the lower Sacramento river, in the interior valleys of the coast ranges from San Francisco Bay to about lat. 35°, and in the high cafions of the San Bernardino Mountains; and has been planted, with successful results, on the alkaline lands of the San Joaquin valley.[4]
In Western America it is largely planted for shelter belts.[5] Mr. W.T. Macoun states in a recent number of the Canadian Forestry Journal, p. 80 (1907), that in the prairie provinces it is used largely in plantations. It grows rapidly during the first twenty years, and produces a very dense cover, which makes it a bad neighbour for slow-growing trees, but a good nurse for those which, like birch, ash, and American elm, can hold their own in its company.
- ↑ Gard. Chron. 1871, p. 1202, f. 275. Cf. also Rev. Hort. 1861, p. 268; Gard. Chron. 1861, p. 867; Flore des Serres, vii. 117 (1867).
- ↑ Negundo aceroides, var. violaceum, Kirchner, Arb. Musc. 190 (1864).
- ↑ G. Don, in Loudon, Arb. et Frut. Brit. i. 460 (1838).
- ↑ Hilyard, Soils, 481 (1906).
- ↑ Cf. U.S. Dept. Agric. Forest Service, Circular 86 (1907), which gives an elaborate account of the economic uses of this tree in the United States, with notes on its propagation and cultivation.
