Striped Maple Moosewood Whistlewood
=Habitat and Range.=--Cool, rocky or sandy woods.
Nova Scotia to Lake Superior.
Maine,--abundant, especially northward in the forests; New Hampshire and
Vermont,--common in highland woods; Massachusetts,--common in the
western and central sections, rare towards the coast; Rhode
Island,--frequent northward; Connecticut,--frequent, reported as far
south as Cheshire (New Haven county).
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South on shaded mountain slopes and in deep ravines to Georgia;
west to Minnesota.
=Habit.=--Shrub or small tree, 15-25 feet high, with a diameter at the
ground of 5-8 inches; characterized by a slender, beautifully striate
trunk and straight branches; by the roseate flush of the opening
foliage, deepening later to a yellowish-green; and by the long,
graceful, pendent racemes of yellowish flowers, succeeded by the
abundant, drooping fruit.
=Bark.=--Bark of trunk and branches deep reddish-brown or dark green,
conspicuously striped longitudinally with pale and blackish bands;
roughish with light buff, irregular dots; the younger branches marked
with oval leaf-scars and the linear scars of the leaf-scales; the
season's shoots smooth, light green, mottled with black.
In spring the bark of the small branches is easily separable, giving
rise to the name whistle wood.
=Winter Buds and Leaves.=--Terminal bud long, short-stalked, obscurely
4-sided, tapering to a blunt tip; lateral buds small and flat; opening
foliage roseate. Leaves simple, opposite; 5-6 inches long and nearly as
broad; the upper leaves much narrower; when fully grown light green
above, paler beneath, finally nearly glabrous, yellow in autumn, divided
above the center into three deep acuminate lobes, finely, sharply, and
usually doubly serrate; base heart-shaped, truncate, or rounded;
leafstalks 1-3 inches long, grooved, the enlarged base including the
leaf-buds of the next season.
=Inflorescence.=--In simple, drooping racemes, often 5-6 inches long,
appearing after the leaves in late May or early June; the sterile and
fertile flowers mostly in separate racemes on the same tree; the
bell-shaped flowers on slender pedicels; petals and sepals
greenish-yellow; sepals narrowly oblong, somewhat shorter than the
obovate petals; stamens usually 8, shorter than the petals in the
sterile flower, rudimentary in the fertile, the pistil abortive or none
in the sterile flower, in the fertile terminating in a recurved
stigma.
=Fruit.=--In long, drooping racemes of pale green keys, set at a wide
but not uniform angle; distinguished from the other maples, except A.
spicatum, by a small cavity in the side of each key; abundant; ripening
in August.
=Horticultural Value.=--Hardy, under favorable conditions, throughout
New England. Prefers a rich, moist soil near water, in shade; but grows
well in almost any soil when once established, many young plants failing
to start into vigorous growth. Occasionally grown by nurserymen, but
more readily obtainable from northern collectors of native plants.
1. Winter buds.
2. Flowering branch.
3. Sterile flower.
4. Fertile flower with part of the perianth removed.
5. Fruiting branch.
=Acer Negundo, L.=
Negundo aceroides, Moench. Negundo Negundo, Karst.