Our Native Maples

Identifier3.24611

TypeDrawing

Date created1944

DescriptionIllustrations of four species of maple, created to accompany "The Maples of The Morton Arboretum" article featured in Morton Arboretum Bulletin of Popular Information. Drawings show tree shape, including top, twigs, branches, size, winged seeds, and leaves. Descriptive text gives details of tree structure (branching, bark, and trunk), habitat, seed ripening schedule, and leaf details including color and sinus structure. Red maple seeds illustration is a cut out piece glued in place.

Illustrations depicted from top to bottom, left to right:

• Sugar maple -- Acer saccharum
  • tree - round top; dark smooth on young branches; right-angled branching; sap-sucker holes; stone-gray bark with thick plates loose along one edge; upland
  • seeds - ripe in September-October
  • leaf - smooth, thin, yellow in Fall
• Silver maple -- Acer saccharinum
  • tree - broad top; smooth gray young branches; branches bend downward with tips turning upward; long loose scales on bark; trunk often divides near ground; lowland
  • seeds - ripe in May
  • leaf - silvery beneath; acute, deep sinuses
• Red maple -- Acer rubrum  
  • tree - pale gray upper branches; red twigs; dark gray bark; swamp, river-bottom, upland
  • seeds - ripe in May-June
  • leaf - silvery beneath, V-shaped sinuses, scarlet in Fall
• Box-elder -- Acer negundo
  • tree - small tree; bushy spreading top, purplish twigs, bark with narrow shallow ridges; river bottoms
  • seeds - ripe in summer; hangs on a winter
  • leaf - prominent veins; 3 to 7 leaflets

Appeared In Morton Arboretum Bulletin Of Popular Information, Vol. 19, no. 8, p. 30.

LanguageEnglish