"In
a few favored spots the broad leafed maple grows to a height of a hundred
feet in forests by itself, sending out large limbs in magnificent interlacing
arches covered with mosses and ferns, thus forming lofty sky-gardens, and
rendering the underwoods delightfully cool. No finer forest ceiling is to
be found than these maple arches, while the floor, ornamented with fall
ferns and rubus vines, and cast into hillocks by the bulging moss covered
roots of the trees, matches it well."
(John Muir)