SILVER MAPLE; SOFT MAPLE (Ace?. saccharinum, Linn.). 50 to 140 feet. Large, stout-trunked tree with long, spreading limbs, drooping at ends. Quick-growing, easily broken by wind and ice. Bark roughly scaly, brownish red, furrowed; twigs red. Wood hard, close-grained, brittle, easy to work, used for fuel and flooring and cheap furniture. Sap sometimes boiled for sugar. Leaves deeply 3-cleft, with 2 small lobes near truncate or heart-shaped base; margin doubly saw-toothed; 4 to 7 inches long, smooth, thin, pale green, white beneath, fuzzy along veins; stems long. Flowers small, in sessile, axil
lary clusters, before leaves, greenish yellow, without petals, moncecious or dicecious, March-April. Fruit paired, winged keys, 2 to 3 inches long, pubescent until ripe, short-stemmed, wind-scattered in late May. Dist.: Rich, moist soil, New foundland to Dakota, south to Florida and Oklahoma. Rare on Atlantic seaboard. Much planted for shade and pro tection on prairies, but inferior to ether species.