Silver maple

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Silver maple fruit

Silver maple bark

Silver maple

Silver maple bark

Silver maple flowers

Silver maple leaf lower surface

Silver maple flowers

Silver maple leaf

Silver maple buds

Silver maple fruit

Morphology

Trunk

Erect; bark light gray to grayish brown, furrows shallow, exfoliating in long, thin plates; wood tan, soft.

Twigs

Reddish brown to grayish brown, flexible, glabrous; leaf scars crescent-shaped; buds reddish brown to red, ovoid to nearly spherical, .12 to .16 inch, apex obtuse to acute, scales ciliate.

Leaves

Deciduous, opposite, simple; petiole 3.2 to 4 inches, glabrous; blade nearly round to triangular-ovate in outline, 4 to 6 inches long, 3.6 to 5.6 inches wide, base truncate to cordate, symmetric, margins prominently 5-lobed, each lobe with 3-6 prominent teeth and, usually, smaller teeth, apex acute to acuminate, sinuses between principal lobes angled or V-shaped, sometimes U-shaped, 1/2 to 2/3 distance to base, lower surface silvery white to grayish white, glabrous or glabrate, upper surface green, glabrous.

Flowers

Inflorescences axillary from lateral buds, clusters, 4-6-flowered; peduncles absent; pedicels 0 to .04 inch, glabrous. Flowers unisexual, radially symmetric, produced before leaves emerge; sepals 5, connate, yellowish green, equal; calyx .16 to .24 inch, lobes triangular; petals absent; staminate: stamens (3-)5(-7), .2 to .24 inch; pistillate: pistil 1; style 1; stigma 2-lobed.

Fruit

May-June; samaras, 2, initially greenish, eventually yellowish brown or tan, prominently winged, wings 1.2 to 2.8 inches, more or less parallel to divergent, sparsely pubescent or glabrate; seed 1 per samara, reddish brown, compressed-ovate to compressed-ellipsoid, .6 to .7 inch long, .24 to .3 inch wide, smooth.

Ecology

Habitat

Stream banks, floodplain forests, swamps, shorelines of ponds and lakes

Distribution

East 2/3 of Kansas

Additional Notes