STRIPED MAPLE; MODSEWOOD (AMT Pennsylvanicum, Linn.). Shrub to 30 or 46 feet. Shade-loving, dainty tree of rocky mountain slopes. Bark of trunk brown or green, with white stripes on 411 wood below the twigs — cracks showing the inner layers, and forming a delicate network of furrows. Leaves 5 to 6 inches long and wide, with 3 triangular lobes :•,,t the broad apex, the central one slightly larger than the others —'all coarsely saw-toothed; base heart-shaped; thin, tomentose when opening, at length thin, smooth above, turn ing to orange and scarlet in autumn; petioles slender, flexible, red. Flowers in June, minute, the two sorts on one stalk, forming an erect, terminal raceme, yellow, bell-shaped, to mentose. Fruit red in July, turning brown; wings inch long, divergent. Dist.: Northern New England and Quebec to Minnesota; along the Appalachian. Mountains to Georgia. Largest size in Big Smoky Mountains.
Box ELDER; ASH-LEAVED MAPLE (Acer negundo, 50 to 70 feet. Quick-growing, sturdy, irregular tree, with brittle limbs and twigs. Bark gray, regularly furrowed; twigs glaucous, purplish; buds red. Wood soft, white, weak, close-grained, used in cooperage and for woodenware and paper pulp. Trees planted for shade and protection in prairie states. Leaves opposite, compound, of 3 to 5 pinnate leaf lets, irregularly toothed and lobed, nearly smooth at maturity, thin, bright green, pale beneath, turning yellow in autumn. Flowers dicecious, opening with leaves; staminate silky, in clusters; pistillate in racemes, inconspicuous, wind-fertilized. Early spring. Fruit, racemes of flat, winged keys, 14 to inches long, ripe in September, but persistent till spring. Dist.: Vermont to Montana; south to Florida and west to Utah. Rare east of the Appalachian Mountains.