A tree, rarely more than 20° high with a short trunk 8′—10′ in diameter, small branches forming an open irregular head, and slender glabrous branchlets light green above when they first appear, becoming pale red-brown and marked by pale lenticels during their first season and ultimately dull gray-brown. Bark of the trunk smooth, pale gray. Winter-buds small, obtuse, covered with dark brown scales, those of the inner ranks accrescent, linear-oblong, scarlet or pink, up to 1⅛′ in length when fully grown.
Distribution. Edwards Plateau of western Texas, banks and bluffs of Cibolo Creek, near Boerne, Kendall County, on the rocky banks of upper Saco Creek, Bandera County, and at the base of a high limestone bluff near Utopia, Uvalde County; rare and local.
7. [Acer floridanum] Pax. Sugar Maple.
Leaves rounded, truncate or slightly cordate at the broad base, 3—5-lobed, with short obtuse or acute entire or lobulate lobes, when they unfold sparingly hairy on the upper surface and hoary-tomentose on the lower surface, and at maturity thin, dark green and lustrous above, pale or glaucescent and pubescent below, 1½′—3′ in diameter, and prominently 3—5-nerved, with stout spreading lateral veins and conspicuous reticulate veinlets; turning yellow and scarlet in the autumn before falling; petioles slender, glabrous, or pubescent generally becoming glabrous, 1½′—3′ in length, with an enlarged base nearly encircling the branchlet. Flowers appearing with the leaves on slender elongated sparingly hairy ultimately glabrous or villose-tomentose (var. villipes Rehd.) pedicels, in many-flowered drooping nearly sessile corymbs; calyx campanulate, yellow, about ⅛′ long, persistent under the fruit, the short lobes ciliate on the margins with long pale hairs; corolla 0. Fruit green, sparingly villose until fully grown, usually becoming glabrous, with spreading occasionally erect wings ⅜′—¾′ long; seeds smooth, bright red-brown, about ¼′ long.
A tree, occasionally 50°—60° high, with a trunk rarely 3° in diameter, small erect and spreading branches, and slender glabrous or more or less densely villose-tomentose (var. villipes Rehdr.) branchlets, light green when they first appear, becoming rather light red-brown during their first season, and covered with minute pale lenticels; usually smaller. Winter-buds obtuse, about ⅛′ long, with dark chestnut-brown obtuse scales and bright rose-colored linear-spatulate inner scales often 1′ long when fully grown. Bark of the trunk thin, smooth, pale, becoming near the base of old trees thick, dark, and deeply furrowed.
Distribution. River banks and low wet woods, southeastern Virginia (near McKinney, Dinwiddie County, W. W. Ashe), valley of the Roanoke River near Weldon, Halifax County, North Carolina, and southward to southern Georgia and western Florida to Lafayette County; near Selma, Dallas County, Alabama; West Feliciana Parish and through western Louisiana to eastern Texas (Harrison and St. Augustine Counties), and southern Arkansas (Fulton, Hempstead County); the var. fillipes near Raleigh, Walker County, North Carolina, Calhoun Falls, Abbeville County, South Carolina, Shell Bluff on the Savannah River, Burke County, Cuthbert, Randolph County, and Columbus, Muscogee County, Georgia; River Junction, Gadsden County, Florida, and on the San Luis Mountains, southern New Mexico (A. brachypterum Woot. & Stanl.).
Sometimes planted as a shade-tree; the prevailing tree in the streets and squares of Raleigh, North Carolina.
8. [Acer grandidentatum] Nutt. Sugar Maple.
