The sugar maple, Acer saccharum, is also known as the hard maple or rock maple.

The sugar maple can reach heights of 40 to 80 feet by its 50^th year. After the 50^th year, growth typically slows. While the sugar maple can live under a wide variety of conditions, depth of the soil andparent material do greatly affect the height of the sugar maples in that area.

Sugar maples can exist on soils that are strongly acidic (pH 3.7), but is typically found on soils with a pH of 5.5 to 7.3, acidic to slightly alkaline. Additionally, sugar maples do best on well-drained loams. Dry, shallow soils and swampy soils are not conducive to the sugar maple. Further south in its range, the sugar maple is picker in terms of soil, while further north it is more accepting of a variety of soils. Additional variations by state include preferring abundant organic matter in New Hampshire and preferring to coexist with oaks in West Virginia.

The sugar maple is found only in regions with cool, moist climates. Typical ranges in temperatures in the sugar maple region are from -40 degrees F to 100 degrees F, and the averaged annual temperatures for its area are shown in the map below. Additionally, sugar maples are very tolerant of shade, more so than most hardwoods.

The leaves of the sugar maple are typical of the maple family, with five lobes. Leaves tend to be dark green on top with a paler undersurface and can be 3 to 5 inches long. Unlike the red maple, which has serrated lobe margins, the lobe margins on a sugar maple are shallow and smooth. Sugar maples produce high quantities of leaf litter. The leaves possess noticeable quantities of calcium, magnesium, potassium, phosphorus, nitrogen, and ash, and are themselves acidic, typically with a pH of 4.0 to 4.9. Calcium content drops when the trees are living in particularly acidic soils.

Sugar maples have yellow flowers up to 2.5 inches long which appear in drooping clusters between late March and mid-May. Flowering is rare until at least 22 years old, and gets heavier as the tree gets older. A single tree will have both male and female flowers, with both sexes appearing in the upper crown of the tree, while only males are found in the lower part. Pollination occurs without the need of insects like bees.

The fruit of the sugar maple is a double samara, which takes 16 weeks to ripen. When the samaras are yellowish green, the seeds inside are considered mature. As with flowers, older trees tend to produce high crops of fruits.

The bark of the sugar maple is dark grey, and develops rough vertical grooves and ridges as it ages, eventually appearing dark brown. Twigs tend to be reddish-brown with a white interior.

Numerous insects, fungi, and diseases may harm the tree, but while insects may kill it, diseases rarely do, instead only deforming a tree or decreasing a tree’s volume. Furthermore, animals such as deer, squirrels, birds, and porcupines feed on the tree, though rarely causing serious damage, except when insects or fungi take advantage of the weakened tree. Road salt can also severely hurt sugar maples.

In terms of commercial lumber, the sugar maple is one of the most important hardwoods, comprising of 9% of hardwood land at 31 million acres and 6% of hardwood sawtimber volume in the Unites States. Another common usage of the tree is maple sugar. The trees are tapped early in the spring, from which sap is derived. The sap is then boiled into a syrup, and through evaporation can be turned into maple sugar. 34 gallons of sap can produce 1 gallon of syrup or 8 pounds of sugar.

The sugar maple on campus can be found between Skillman Library and Markle Hall.

The red maple, Acer rubrum, is also known by many other names, such as but not limited to the scarlet maple, the swamp maple, and the soft maple. It can and does natively grow over a large range and is one of the most abundant and widespread trees in eastern North America. Compared to other maples, it has a wider range of climate tolerance, and it can live in zones 3 to 9.

 It is also not picky about soils or parent material, moisture, nutrients, and pH levels. Perhaps it is due to this adaptability that it can be found in more extreme soil-moisture conditions, where other trees cannot. Furthermore, it easily develops more specialized root systems based on soil conditions in its current location. Its preferred locations, however, are moist, moderately well-drained sites at low to intermediate elevations.

The red maple produces small, red to yellow flowers from March to May starting at 4 years of age. Some trees are entirely male, others female, and others are monoecious, usually with alternating functionality on branches.
The red maple is often used as a shade tree. It can grow between 60 to 90 feet in height, though the largest known red maple is 125 feet tall with a trunk circumference of 16.25 feet.

 On campus are three different cultivars of red maple, namely, ‘Red sunset,’ ‘October glory,’ and ‘Armstrong.’ They can be found by the Williams Center for the Arts, near Farinon, and on the path between Colton Chapel and Pardee. They are notable for their bright red fall coloring.

Sources

Walters, Russell S. and Harry W. Yawney. “Red Maple.” Silvics of North America. Ed. Russell M. Burns and Barbara H. Honkala. Washington, DC: Forest Service, United States Department of Agriculture, December 1990. 60-69. Print.

“Acer rubrum.” Missouri Botanical Garden. Missouri Botanical Garden, n.d. Web. 14 April 2016.