=1a. Acer Negundo= variety =violàceum= Kirchner. (_Rulac Nuttallii_
Nieuwland). This variety is distinguished by its glaucous twigs and by
the body of the fruit being glabrous at maturity. In most instances when
the bloom is rubbed from the twigs they show a purple tinge, hence the
varietal name.
=Distribution.=--I have this variety in Indiana from the following
counties: Brown, Cass, Elkhart, Franklin, Fulton, Hendricks, Henry,
Jennings, Lagrange, Martin, Posey, St. Joseph, Vermillion and Wayne.
=2. Acer saccharìnum= Linnæus. Silver Maple. Soft Maple. White Maple.
Plate 112. Medium sized trees; bark of small trees smooth and gray,
becoming on old trees reddish-brown, and freely splitting into thin
scales; branchlets light to reddish-brown and generally turning upward
at their tips; leaves generally about 1 dm. long, generally somewhat
cordate at the base, sometimes truncate, deeply 3-lobed, each of the
lateral lobes with an additional lobe below, margins of all of the lobes
more or less irregular or even lobed, the two principal sinuses
generally show a tendency to close, leaves hairy beneath when young,
glabrous above and below at maturity and very glaucous beneath; flowers
appear in March or April in the axils of the leaves of the previous
year, the staminate and pistillate in separate clusters on the same or
different trees; fruit on pedicels 1.5-6 cm. long, maturing in the
spring or early summer, green, densely hairy while young and remaining
more or less hairy at maturity, 4-7 cm. long, wings 1-2 cm. wide.
=Distribution.=--New Brunswick to Florida, west to South Dakota and
south to Texas. Locally frequent to very common in all parts of Indiana.
This species is always found in wet or moist places, and in the lower
Wabash bottoms in low overflow lands or in or about old sloughs it often
forms the principal stand. It is more frequently associated with black
willow, white elm, red birch, sycamore, etc.
=Remarks.=--The silver maple has been used extensively for shade tree
planting. The branches are very brittle, and ice storms sometimes break
off so many branches that the tree may be badly injured. The shade trees
of this species are in many parts of the state being killed by scale
insects, and for this reason it should not be used. On account of its
rapid growth it has also been much used for windbreaks but this practice
should be discouraged and better species used.
[Illustration: Plate 112.