Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • The silver maple.
  • The mountain-maple.
  • noun The red maple (see maple); also, Negundo Californicum, of the Coast Range in California.

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word swamp-maple.

Examples

  • In the winter they feed on the buds and twig tips of young spruce and birch and swamp-maple; and when there is no snow they feed freely on various ground plants in the forest; but for over half the year they prefer to eat the grasses and other plants which grow either above or under the water in the lakes.

    XI. A Curious Experience 1916

  • There it lay in charmed solitude, shut in by a tawny growth of larch and swamp-maple, its edges burnt out to smouldering shades of russet, ember-red and ashen-grey, while the quaking centre still preserved a jewel-like green, where hidden lanes of moisture wound between islets tufted with swamp-cranberry and with the charred browns of fern and wild rose and bay.

    The Fruit of the Tree Edith Wharton 1899

  • On one of the points an old swamp-maple, with its decrepit branches and its leaves already touched with the hectic colours of decay, hung far out over the water which was undermining it, looking and leaning downward, like an aged man who bends, half-sadly and half-willingly, towards the grave.

    Fisherman's Luck and Some Other Uncertain Things Henry Van Dyke 1892

  • At the edges of the great timbered swamps thickets of young winter-bare cypresses were budding yet more vividly than the willows, while in the depths of those overflowed forests, near and far down their lofty gray colonnades, the dwarfed swamp-maple drooped the winged fruit of its limp bush in pink and flame-yellow and rose-red masses until it touched its own image in the still flood.

    Kincaid's Battery George Washington Cable 1884

  • Here and there, a swamp-maple seemed all one crimson flame; while greener shrubbery and trees, yet untouched by frosts, rose up around it, as if purposely to give background and relief to so much color.

    Oldtown Folks 1869

  • But let him remain till March or April, and as the snow begins to melt away, he discovers the beautiful crocus struggling through the half-frozen ground; the snow-drops appear in all their chaste beauty; the buds of the swamp-maple shoot forth; the beautiful magnolia opens her splendid blossoms; the sassafras adds its evidence of life; the pearl-white blossoms of the dog-wood light up every forest: and while our stranger is rubbing his eyes in astonishment, the earth is covered with her emerald velvet carpet; rich foliage and brilliant colored blossoms adorn the trees; fragrant flowers are enwreathing every wayside; the swift-winged birds float through the air and send forth joyous notes of gratitude from every tree-top; the merry lambs skip joyfully around their verdant pasture-grounds; and everywhere is our stranger surrounded with life, beauty, joy and gladness.

    Life of Hon. Phineas T. Barnum 1891

  • The bright red flowers of this tree look very pretty in the spring; it grows best by the water-side, and some call it 'the swamp-maple.'"

    In the Forest Or, pictures of life and scenery in the woods of Canada Catharine Parr Strickland Traill 1850

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.