Distribution. Coast of southern Alaska (head of Lynn Canal), southward near the coast to Vancouver Island and western Washington, and eastward on the high mountains of Washington to the Blue Mountains of eastern Oregon, western Idaho and northern Montana; on Loomis Creek, Natrona County, Wyoming.
2. [Acer circinatum] Pursh. Vine Maple.
Leaves almost circular in outline, cordate at base by a broad shallow sinus, or sometimes almost truncate, palmately 7—9-lobed occasionally nearly to the middle, with acute lobes sharply and irregularly doubly serrate, and conspicuously palmately nerved, with prominent veinlets, when they unfold tinged with rose color, and puberulous, especially on the lower surface and on the petioles, and at maturity glabrous with the exception of tufts of pale hairs in the axils of the large veins, thin and membranaceous, dark green above, pale below, and 2′—7′ in diameter; in the autumn turning orange and scarlet; petioles stout, grooved, 1′—2′ in length, clasping the stem by their large base. Flowers appearing when the leaves are about half grown, in loose 10—20-flowered umbel-like corymbs pendent on long stems from the end of slender 2-leaved branchlets, the staminate and pistillate flowers produced together; sepals oblong to obovate, acute, villose, purple or red, much longer than the greenish white broad, cordate petals folded together at apex; stamens 6-8, with slender filaments villose at base, exserted in the staminate flower, much shorter than the petals in the pistillate flower; ovary glabrous, with spreading lobes, in the staminate flower reduced to a small point surrounded by a tuft of pale hairs; style divided nearly to the base into long exserted stigmas. Fruit with thin wings, 1½′ long, spreading almost at right angles, red or rose color like the nutlets in early summer, ripening late in the autumn; seeds smooth, pale chestnut-brown, ⅛′¼′ long.
A tree, rarely 30°—40° high, often vine-like or prostrate, with a trunk 10′—12′ in diameter, and glabrous pale green or reddish brown branchlets frequently covered during their first winter with a glaucous bloom, and occasionally marked by small lenticels; often a low wide-spreading shrub. Winter-buds ⅛′ long, rather obtuse, with thin bright red outer scales rounded on the back, and obovate-spatulate inner scales rounded at apex, contracted into a long narrow claw, bright rose-colored and more or less pubescent, especially on the outer surface, and when fully grown often 2′ long and ¼′ broad. Bark of the trunk thin, smooth, bright red-brown, marked by numerous shallow fissures. Wood heavy, hard, close-grained, not strong, light brown, sometimes nearly white, with thick lighter colored sapwood; used for fuel, the handles of axes and other tools, and by the Indians of the northwest coast for the bows of their fishing-nets.
Distribution. Banks of streams; coast of British Columbia through western Washington and Oregon to Mendocino County, and the cañon of the upper Sacramento River, California; one of the most abundant of the deciduous-leaved trees of western Washington and Oregon up to altitudes of 4000° above the sea, and of its largest size on the rich alluvial soil of bottom-lands, its vine-like stems in such situations springing 4 or 5 together from the ground, spreading in wide curves and sending out long slender branches rooting when they touch the ground and forming impenetrable thickets of contorted and interlaced trunks, often many acres in extent; in California smaller and less abundant, growing along streams in the coniferous forest or rarely on dry ridges up to an altitude of 4000° in the northeastern part of the state.
Occasionally cultivated as an ornamental plant in Europe, and in the eastern states, and hardy as far north as eastern Massachusetts.
3. [Acer spicatum] Lam. Mountain Maple.
Leaves subcordate or sometimes truncate at base, conspicuously 3-nerved, 3 or slightly 5-lobed, with gradually narrowed pointed lobes, and sharply and coarsely glandular-serrate, when they unfold puberulous on the upper surface and densely tomentose on the lower surface, and at maturity thin, 4′—5′ long and broad; turning in the autumn to various shades of orange and scarlet; petioles slender, enlarged at base, 2′—3′ in length, often becoming scarlet in summer. Flowers opening in June after the leaves are fully grown, ¼′ diameter, on slender pedicels ½′—¾′ long, the pistillate toward the base and the staminate at the apex of a narrow many-flowered long-stemmed upright slightly compound pubescent raceme; calyx-lobes narrow-obovate, yellow, pubescent on the outer surface, much shorter than the linear-spatulate pointed yellow petals; stamens 7 or 8, inserted immediately under the ovary, with slender glabrous filaments as long as the petals in the sterile flower, about as long as the sepals in the pistillate flower, and glandular anthers; ovary hoary-tomentose, reduced to a minute point surrounded by a tuft of pale hairs in the staminate flower; style columnar, almost as long as the petals, with short stigmatic lobes. Fruit fully grown and bright red or yellow in July, turning brown late in the autumn, almost glabrous, with more or less divergent wings about ½′ long; seeds smooth, dark red-brown, ⅛′ long.