Acer saccharum

COMMON NAME: Sugar Maple, Rock Maple, Hard Maple

FAMILY: Maple Family; Aceraceae

GROWTH HABIT: Branches widely spread into a full, rounded crown. Trees to 60 - 70 ft. tall.

FOLIAGE: Opposite, simple, deciduous. 3 - 5 in long and 3-6 inches wide. Dark green above, paler and no usually no hairs below. 3-5 coarsely and sparingly toothed lobes with fairly deep sinuses between them. Rounded base. Long, slender petiole.

BUDS: Pointed, reddish-brown, with four to eight pairs of scales.

BARK: Gray - brown, becoming deeply furrowed with age; often breaking into plates.

FLOWERS: Yellowish, long-stemmed and drooping, with no petals. Appearing as the leaves unfold in the spring. Born on 1 - 3 in. long pendulous hairy pedicels in subsessile corymbs.

FRUIT: Wing-like, slightly divergent samaras, 1 - 1/12 inches long. Maturing in autumn.

NATURAL HISTORY: Highly tolerant of shade and long-lived (three hundred years).

NATIVE HABITAT: Southeastern Canada; northeastern United States to northern Georgia and Alabama; west to eastern Missouri.