OREGON MAPLE
(Acer Macrophyllum)

Botanists prefer to call this tree broadleaf maple. The name is not inappropriate, as its extraordinarily broad leaves constitute the most striking feature of the tree where it stands in the woods. The leaf is usually wider than it is long. Some exceed a foot in both measurements. Bigleaf maple is not an uncommon name for the tree in Oregon, where it attains its highest development in damp valleys where the soil is good. The name white maple is not particularly descriptive of any feature of the tree, though the name is applied in both Oregon and Washington. In California it is known simply as maple. There is small likelihood in that region that it will be confused with any other member of the maple household; nor is there much danger of such a thing in any part of the Pacific coast, for, though four species of maple occur there, no one of them bears close enough resemblance to this one to be mistaken for it.

The Oregon maple’s range north and south covers twenty degrees of latitude. In that particular it is not much surpassed, if surpassed at all, by any maple of this country. Its northern limit lies in Alaska, its southern close to the Mexican boundary, in San Diego county, California. Its range east and west is restricted. It has a width of about one hundred and fifty miles in California, where it grows from the coast to the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. An altitude of 5,600 feet appears to be the limit of its range upward. It attains altitudes above 5,000 feet at several points in the Sierra Nevada range. It descends nearly to sea level. Its geographical range is similar to the ranges of several other Pacific coast species which occupy long ribbons of territory stretching north and south parallel with the coast of the Pacific ocean.

This maple’s leaves change to a clear reddish-yellow before falling. Flowers appear after the leaves are grown, and the seeds ripen late in autumn. Some of them hang until late in winter, but the habit varies in different parts of the range, as is natural in view of its great extension north and south. The trees which stand in open ground are very abundant seeders, but those in dense stands produce sparingly, in that particular following the habit of most trees. This maple often grows in dense, nearly pure stands in Oregon and Washington where soil and other conditions are favorable.

The sizes and forms of Oregon maple vary greatly. John Muir spoke of forests whose trees were eighty or one hundred feet high, so dense with leaves and so abundantly supplied with branches that moss and ferns formed a canopy with foliage and limbs high over head, like an aerial garden; while George B. Sudworth described it in certain situations as a short-stemmed, crooked tree from twenty-five to thirty feet high and under a foot in diameter.

This maple has been called the most valuable hardwood of the Pacific coast, but that claim is made also for other trees. Some persons rate it with the hard maple of the East, in properties which commend it for use. It is doubtful if the claim can be substantiated. According to Sargent’s figures for strength, stiffness, weight, and fuel value, it lacks much of equalling the eastern tree. It is twelve pounds per cubic foot lighter; has not three-fourths the fuel value; and is little more than half as strong or as stiff. The comparison is more in favor of the western tree when color of wood and appearance of grain are considered. The wood is light brown with pale tint of red. The rings of annual growth are tolerably distinct, with a thin, dark line separating the summerwood of one year from the springwood of the next. The pores are scattered with fair evenness in all parts of the ring. They are small and numerous. The medullary rays are thin and abundant. In quarter-sawed wood they show much the same as in hard maple, but are rather darker in color. The mirrors are decidedly tinged with brown. The wood is reported poor in resisting decay when in contact with the soil.

The largest use of Oregon maple appears to be for furniture, second, for interior finish, and following these are numerous miscellaneous uses. Statistics of the cut of this wood, as shown by sawmill reports, are unsatisfactory. Census returns include it with all other maples of the country, without figures for species. The cut of maple for all the western states seems too small to give this wood justice. The amount reported used in Washington, Oregon, and California exceeds the total reported sawmill cut in the West.

Oregon maple is an important handlewood. The smooth grain appeals to broom makers. The wood is made into ax handles, but for that use it is much below hickory, or even hard maple or white oak. It is converted into pulleys in Washington, also into saddle trees, and tent toggles. Boat makers employ it for finish material, in which capacity it fills the same place, and must meet the same requirements as in interior finish for houses. Curly or wavy wood is occasionally found and this is worked into finish and also into furniture. The figure is as handsome as in eastern maple, but birdseye is less frequent. Counter tops for stores and bar tops for saloons are sometimes made of figured maple. It is seen also in grill work and show cases, but in order to show the figured wood to the best advantage it should be worked in flat surfaces.

Oregon maple is converted into flooring of the ordinary tongued and grooved kind, and also into parquet flooring. Rotary veneers are made into boxes and baskets. Solid logs are turned for rollers of various sizes and kinds. Mill yards use them for offbearing lumber, and house movers find them about the best local material to be had. This maple has been successfully stained in imitation of mahogany, and is said to pass satisfactory tests where the color is the principal consideration.

The amount of this species available in the Northwest is not definitely known, but it is a relatively scarce wood. No attention has ever been given to planting it as a commercial proposition. It is not of very rapid growth, and unless it is in dense stands, it develops a short trunk and large crown. It is better suited for shade and ornament, and is to be seen as a street tree in some western towns. It does not flourish in the eastern states, but has found the climate of western Europe more congenial and is occasionally found as an ornamental tree there.

The relative importance of this maple in the state of Washington is indicated by the amount used annually compared with certain other hardwoods. In 1911 the consumption of willow was 2,000 feet, vine maple 10,000, Oregon ash 58,000, Oregon oak 197,000, western birch 315,000, Oregon maple 932,500, red alder 1,881,500, and black cottonwood 32,572,200.

Vine Maple (Acer circinatum) is sometimes called mountain maple, though the name is misleading. It may grow among mountains, but always near streams. It is found at various altitudes from near sea level to 5,000 feet above. It ranges from the coast region of British Columbia southward through Washington and Oregon to Mendocino county, California. This tree is more useful than might be inferred from its name, or even from a study of it in its usual form. Only an occasional tree is good for the wood user. A height of twenty feet and a diameter of six inches are above the average. It is called vine maple because of its habit of sprawling on the ground like a vine. The trunk lacks sufficient stiffness to hold it erect. It grows upward to a certain point, then leans over and the branches lie on the ground. Some of them take root and in course of time what was first a single stem becomes a thicket of branches and stems. The winter snow often has much to do with bending the trunk, which appears to have no power to get back to the perpendicular when once bowed down. The damp situation where this tree thrives best, induces a luxuriant growth of moss and mold which help to bury the branches that lie on the ground.

The tree prospers in deep shade. The young leaves are rose red, and in the fall become yellow or scarlet. The fruit is the characteristic maple key. The wing becomes rose-red before falling in autumn. Though this tree is more a curiosity than a lumberman’s asset, it is not without value. Handle makers use 10,000 feet of it a year in the state of Washington. It is shaved and turned for ax and shovel handles. It has two-thirds the strength and less than half the stiffness of eastern hard maple. The tree grows slowly and the annual rings are very narrow and indistinct. Seventy or eighty years are required to produce a trunk five inches in diameter. The wood is hard, and checks badly in seasoning. The bark is very pale brown—suggesting the color of a potato sprout that has grown in a dark cellar. The Indians liked the wood for fish net bows, though there appears to have been no very good reason why they preferred it to other woods of the region. Its most extensive use at present is as fuel, but it is not particularly sought after. The tree’s future is not promising. Under domestication it does not take on its fantastic, moldy, moss-grown form, and its forest growth will never be encouraged by lumbermen.

Dwarf Maple (Acer glabrum) is one of the smallest of the maples, but in a north and south direction its range is equal to that of any other. Its southern limit is among the canyons of Arizona, and its northern on the coast of Alaska within six or seven degrees of the Arctic circle. It extends to Nebraska, and is found east of the continental divide far north in British America. It reaches its largest size on Vancouver island and on the Blue mountains in Oregon. It here is large enough to make small sawlogs, but it is usually shrubby in other parts of its range. It grows from sea level in Alaska to 9,000 feet altitude among the Sierra Nevada mountains of California. Two forms of leaf occur. One is three-lobed; the other is a compound leaf, the lobes having formed separate leaves. The bright upper surface of the leaf gives the species its botanical name. The seeds have large, wide wings. It cannot be ascertained that the wood of this maple has ever been used for anything.