For Canadian readers, Happy Canada Day!
It is perhaps coincidental that the Canadian icon, the maple leaf, represents a genus of plants with members from nearly every part of the world -- a fitting symbol for a nation of diversity and multiculturalism. As I alluded to last month, UBC Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research is one of the best places in Canada to see maples, with one hundred different species and cultivars.
Snapped in October 2003, this photograph shows the autumn colours of a fallen leaf of bigtooth maple in the alpine garden. Maple taxonomists have sometimes disagreed about the relationship of this southwestern North American maple to the well-known Acer saccharum (sugar maple) of eastern North America. In fact, UBC currently has this plant accessioned and labelled as Acer saccharum subsp. grandidentatum, reflecting a closer relationship between bigtooth maple and sugar maple than is currently accepted by places such as the USDA, so we're going to have to review the literature and the science behind the names (and either change the label or change the title of this Photo of the Day entry!).
You can read more about making sugar from sugar maples from either “The Sap is Running” via the Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Garden at UCLA or delve into the industrial processes via the Cornell Sugar Maple Research and Extension Program.
Lastly, in Botany Photo of the Day news, the journal Science has written a small feature about the site in its “NetWatch” section (see it as it appears in print via PDF). By happy coincidence, it is in Science's well-publicized 125th anniversary issue!
Why did you put the family name, Sapindaceae, as a key word above the Acer grandidentatum picture?
Bob C.
Thanks, I needed this. We have a sugar maple in our front yard. I have been tempted to tap it. The Mathias report is most appreciated. I was concerned that tapping could cause irreversible damage to the tree. I now wonder how one prevents the infestation of insects to the puncture site. There is probably a preferred method. Also, should one 'dress' the wound site after puncture? These questions are yet to be addressed. I appreciate the link, thanks, again.
Nice!
Bob,
Recent molecular analysis of plants such as Acer (maple), Aesculus (horsechestnut) and Koelreuteria (golden rain tree) confirms what most 19th Century botanists saw clearly: that there is little real evidence supporting the separation of these genera into separate families.
What are the respective publication dates of Aceraceae, Hippocastanaceae and Sapindaceae?
I'm rather surprised - given that most 19th century botanists were from the temperate northern hemisphere where Acer is by far the most familiar genus in the group - that the families were merged under the name Sapindaceae, rather than under the name Aceraceae, as I'd have thought that Aceraceae would have been named earlier due to the familiarity of the type genus
Using James Reveal's note on Sapindales as a guide, Sapindaceae and Aceraceae were both described in 1789 by Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu. Hippocastanaceae was separated later, by DC. in 1824.
What is interesting is that both Aceraceae and Sapindaceae were published by Jussieu in Genera Plantarum on August 4, 1789, so I'm not sure why Sapindaceae has priority. Perhaps the date that the descriptions were written? I don't have access to the book to try and find an answer.
Thanks; if they are the same date, it should be following the usage adopted by the first botanist to combine the two families into one. Presumably it was someone who was more familiar with Sapindaceae than Acer (odd as that possibility may seem to our temperate point of view!).