FAMILY: SAPINDACEAE (formerly ACERACEAE)
ALTERNATE COMMON NAME: southern sugar maple
LEAVES:: opposite, simple, deciduous, 1.5-3” long, with (3-) 5 palmate lobes; lobe tips acute, sinuses rounded; margins entire or wavy; leaves pubescent beneath.
FLOWER: dioecious, occasionally perfect
flowers; small (1/8”) bell-shaped, in drooping clusters;
early spring
FRUIT: double samara, 3/4-1", wings orange-brown, seed-bearing portions green, maturing in midsummer.
TWIGS: glabrous, initially green, maturing to reddish brown.
BARK: platy with shallow furrows on older trees.
FORM: medium-sized tree, 40-60' up to 2'
diameter; slow growing understory species
HABITAT: well-drained but moist soils of stream terraces and bluffs, often growing on calcareous substrates.
RANGE [Map]: eastern Oklahoma and Texas east to North Carolina and Virginia.
USES: a “hard maple”, harvested when obtaining commercial size and can be used for furniture, flooring and shoe lasts; occasionally used as an ornamental; maple seed, in general, is used by song and game birds depending upon seed maturity; small mammals use browse, bark, buds; important squirrel food; good deer browse.
Best Recognition Features:
- understory or midstory tree with opposite leaves and branching.
- leaves palmately lobed usually with 5 lobes, lobe margins entire, sinuses U-shaped.
- double samara with brownish-orange wings and green seed-bearing portions, maturing in midsummer.
NOTE: considered to be a subspecies of sugar
maple (Acer saccharum), but it is a smaller tree
with smaller leaves and its range has limited overlap with
sugar maple |
