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March 22, 2006 : Acer macrophyllum

Keywords: Sapindaceae | Acer macrophyllum Pursch. | JD Seed Collection 1007

Acer macrophyllum

I'm on vacation, so only a short written accompaniment today. – Daniel

Eric La Fountaine wrote today's entry (and he scanned the seed). – Daniel.

The dry winged seeds of Acer macrophyllum, or bigleaf maple, are referred to as samaras or keys. The one in this image was collected in 1946 and is now part of the John Davidson Seed collection at the UBC Botanical Garden.

The tree is native from Alaska to southern California and can reach a height of 30 metres. Macrophyllum means “big leaf” – the maple is therefore appropriately named, as it is the species with the largest leaves. The leaves can measure up to 20 cm across.

Posted by Daniel Mosquin at March 22, 2006 12:00 AM

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Comments

How do you "scan" a seed? Can I do it with my scanner? ... and get such beautiful resolution?

Posted by: Hollis Marriott at March 22, 2006 9:39 AM

The hairs on these are irritating and easily dislodged, apparently having a protective function.

Posted by: Ron B at March 22, 2006 10:59 AM

Hollis, with a good scanner you can easily get images like this one. Scanners basically take a flat image, but capture more depth in images than might be expected. There have been other scanned items on BPotD, here is my favourite Physalis sp.

It is interesting to note the hairs, wings and details of seeds when the view is blown up like this. They are amazingly complicated little packages.

Posted by: Eric La Fountaine at March 22, 2006 11:27 AM

All these are done with a flatbed scanner

http://www.pinetum.org/cones/PNStrobus.htm

Posted by: Michael F at March 22, 2006 1:16 PM

Acer macrophyllum is in the Aceraceae family
and the Sapindales Order.

Posted by: Bob Burns at March 22, 2006 6:22 PM

Hi Bob - yes and no. In most traditional taxonomic classifications systems, yes. However, we generally follow the classification system put out by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group which incorporates molecular data along with the traditional morphological (and more) data. See the entry on Sapindaceae

Posted by: Daniel Mosquin Author Profile Page at March 22, 2006 6:50 PM

a belated thanks for the info re scanning ... I'm looking forward to trying it.

Posted by: hollis Marriott at March 25, 2006 9:36 AM

Please share your comments about the photograph(s) and accompanying write-up. Telling a story about the subject of the photograph(s) is also much appreciated! If you have a gardening question, the best place to ask is on the UBC Botanical Garden Forums. Thank you!

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Botany Photo of the Day is a project of the UBC Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research, located in Vancouver, British Columbia Canada. UBC BGCPR is a department of the Faculty of Land and Food Systems within The University of British Columbia.