38. The Striped Maple. Growing in the shade of other trees and forming part of the undergrowth of our North woods is a small tree known as the striped maple, from the stripes which run up and down its bark. The New England name for this little mountain tree is moosewood, from the fact that the moose is very fond of the bark and twigs, which form his chief food in winter. The leaves are quite large, but very thin, soft, and delicate.
Fig. 93. The Striped Maple, or Moosewood
39. Maple Keys. The fruit, or seeds, of all the maples are known as winged. The flat, thin part gives the seed a swirling motion as it drops from the tree. This is the way nature has of spreading the seed over a large area so that more trees may be started in life. Many tree seeds are winged, but the maple seed or key is so large and so common that every one must at some time have noticed it.
Fig. 94. Maple “Keys,” a Common Form of Winged Seeds
40. The Ash-Leaved Maple. The ash-leaved maple is a leaf very common in our parks. It has no resemblance to other maple leaves, yet it bears the unmistakable maple key,—“By their fruits ye shall know them.” It is therefore a maple.
The box elder, or ash-leaved maple, is interesting because it is our only maple having a compound leaf; that is, a leaf stem with several distinct leaflets. Compound leaves are very common (notice the hickory leaf and the horse-chestnut), but not on maples, and our ash-leaved maple is a curiosity. It delights in swampy places, but grows almost anywhere. It is a small tree, and its wood is not especially valuable except for making paper pulp.
North America has only nine varieties of maple, while China and Japan have more than thirty. Indeed, it is to Japan, whose forests are largely made up of maples, that we are indebted for some of the most dainty and exquisite trees to be found. The Japan maples planted so extensively on our lawns and in our parks have such a variety of form and color that no written description can do them justice. [Fig. 96] will give some idea of their shape and delicacy. The colors, which of course cannot be shown, range from dark purple to the most delicate combinations of white and green. The finest of these dainty leaves bears a stronger resemblance to an ostrich plume than to anything in the line of tree leaves.