Acer nigrum

COMMON NAME: Black Maple

FAMILY: Maple Family; Aceraceae

GROWTH HABIT: Similar to sugar maple. Tree to 40 m tall.

FOLIAGE: Opposite, simple, deciduous. 3-6 inches wide, 3 (mostly)-5 lobed, shallowly lobed with rounded sinuses, leaves darker green and more hairy than sugar maple. Edges tend to droop.

BUDS: Hairy buds, gray-dust-brown in color; 2 axillary buds at terminal.

BARK: Black, deeply furrowed in older trees (darker than sugar maple).

FLOWERS: Yellowish green on pendulous hairy pedicels in nearly sessile many-flowered corymbs.

FRUIT: Wings of paired fruits widely separated.

NATURAL HISTORY: May be a variety of the sugar maple.

NATIVE HABITAT: Eastern Canada to Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas