Acer.

Acer dasycarpum Ehrh. Sapindaceae (Aceraceae). Silver Maple. Soft Maple. White Maple.

North America. The sap will make sugar of good quality but less in quantity than the sugar maple. Sugar is made from this species, says Loudon, in districts where the tree abounds, but the produce is not above half that obtained from the sap of the sugar maple.

Acer platanoides Linn. Norway Maple.

Europe and the Orient. From the sap, sugar has been made in Norway, Sweden and in Lithuania.

Acer pseudo-platanus Linn. Mock Plane. Sycamore Maple.

Europe and the Orient. In England, children suck the wings of the growing keys for the sake of obtaining the sweet exudation that is upon them. In the western Highlands and some parts of the Continent, the sap is fermented into wine, the trees being first tapped when just coming into leaf. From the sap, sugar may be made but not in remunerative quantities.

Acer rubrum Linn. Red Maple. Swamp Maple.

North America. The French Canadians make sugar from the sap which they call plaine, but the product is not more than half that obtained from the sugar maple. In Maine, sugar is often made from the sap.

Acer saccharinum Wangenh. Rock Maple. Sugar Maple.

North America. This large, handsome tree must be included among cultivated food plants, as in some sections of New England groves are protected and transplanted for the use of the tree to furnish sugar. The tree is found from 48° north in Canada, to the mountains in Georgia and from Nova Scotia to Arkansas and the Rocky Mountains. The sap from the trees growing in maple orchards may give as an average one pound of sugar to four gallons of sap, and a single tree may furnish four or five pounds, although extreme yields have been put as high as thirty-three pounds from a single tree. The manufacture of sugar from the sap of the maple was known to the Indians, for Jefferys, 1760, says that in Canada "this tree affords great quantities of a cooling and wholesome liquor from which they make a sort of sugar," and Jonathan Carver, in 1784, says the Nandowessies Indians of the West consume the sugar which they have extracted from the maple tree." In 1870, the Winnebagoes and Chippewas are said often to sell to the Northwest Fur Company fifteen thousand pounds of sugar a year. The sugar season among the Indians is a sort of carnival, and boiling candy and pouring it out on the snow to cool is the pastime of the children.

Acer tataricum Linn. Tartarian Maple.

Orient. The Calmucks, after depriving the seeds of their wings, boil them in water and afterwards use them for food, mixed with milk and butter.

Sturtevant's Edible Plants of the World, 1919, was edited by U. P. Hedrick.