Sugar Maple
Acer saccharum · Sapindaceae · Deciduous · also called hard maple, rock maple
The sugar maple is the source of maple syrup and the best autumn colour in eastern North America. Its leaves are separated from the red maple's by the notches between the lobes: sugar maple notches are smooth and rounded, red maple notches are sharp and V-shaped, and the leaf edges are toothed.
Quick facts
- Arrangement
- opposite
- Leaf
- Five lobes with smooth, U-shaped notches between them and few or no teeth along the edges. The classic Canadian flag shape.
- Bark
- Grey-brown, smooth when young, developing long irregular vertical plates that lift along one edge with age.
- Fruit
- Paired winged samaras — helicopter seeds — joined at an angle of roughly 60 to 90 degrees, falling in autumn.
- Height
- 60–100 ft
How to confirm it
- Opposite leaves — only a handful of tree groups have this, which narrows things enormously.
- Five lobes with smooth U-shaped notches and untoothed edges.
- Paired samaras hanging at a wide angle.
- Bark forms long vertical plates that peel free along one side.
What it is confused with
One observation settles each of these.
Red maple notches between lobes are sharp V shapes and the leaf edges are clearly toothed. Sugar maple notches are smooth U shapes with untoothed edges.
Snap the leaf stalk. Norway maple leaks milky white sap; sugar maple does not.
Where it grows
Eastern and central North America, in rich woodland and very widely planted as a street and yard tree.
Start here: opposite or alternate?
Look at where the leaves join the twig. Are they in matched pairs directly across from each other, or staggered one after another? The vast majority of trees are alternate, so finding an opposite tree removes almost everything else in one step.
In North America, opposite-leaved trees are remembered as MAD Cap Horse: Maple, Ash, Dogwood, Caprifoliaceae (viburnums and elders), and Horse chestnut. That is very nearly the whole list.
Check partway along a healthy twig rather than at the tip, where crowding can make alternate leaves look paired. And check more than one twig.