TRUNK OF A YOUNG RED MAPLE
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In the autumn this tree is one of the first to turn, and its brilliant red leaves in the low swamp lands, beginning often the last of August or early September, invariably startle one with a swift premonition of winter. “How early the fall has come this year!” some one usually says, and no one realizes it is just the habit of early maturity peculiar to that particular red maple. It is a tree closely associated with Thoreau, for we read that he spent much time in extracting sugar from its sap, against the wishes of his more practical-minded father, who could not understand why his son should spend time and money over such an experiment, when he could buy better and cheaper sugar at the store.
The wood, although it is close-grained and firm, is not so much used as that of the sugar maple, owing to the fact that it decays when exposed to alternate moisture and dryness. There are several varieties of the wood. The curled maple, one of the most attractive, has wavy fibres which catch the light like watered silk, and it is much used in cabinet work. The sap is only half as rich in sugar as that of the sugar maple.
The Latin name, Acer rubrum,—red maple,—came from the Celtic word rub, signifying red.
White or Silver Maple Acer saccharinum
This tree is found growing wild in wet places throughout New England, and it is also often cultivated. The trunk is low and divided into spreading branches that form a spacious head. The branches sweep down and turn up with curving tips. Smooth, red buds like those of the red maple. It blossoms before the leaves are out, like the red maple.
It is always a delight to find this tree growing naturally where it has not been planted, for, owing to its habit of growing near flowing streams with clear, sandy bottoms, one rarely comes across it. It is a tree to look for on a canoeing trip, and when one discovers its long, drooping branches hanging over the stream, the feeling of isolation is complete; a silver maple on a river bank accentuates the sense of being in the country, just as the notes of the hermit thrush accentuate the sense of remoteness in the woods.
In winter there are two distinct characteristics by which one may distinguish the silver maple from the red which it closely resembles,—the curving tips of the lower branches which sweep down and curve up in a pronounced way unlike the red maple, and the manner in which the bark peels off from the old trunks, in long pieces which are free at either end and attached in the middle, while the bark of the red maple splits up and down the trunk without shagging in strips.