Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses

SUGAR MAPLE

File Size: 89 KB

Acer saccharum Marshall

Linn County, Kansas

Height: To 65 feet

Family: Sapindaceae - Soapberry Family

Flowering Period: April, May

Also Called:

Hard maple.

Trunks:

Erect; bark gray, furrows deep, ridges separating into thick plates; wood tan, hard.

Twigs:

Brown, flexible, glabrous; leaf scars U-shaped; pith white to light brown; buds reddish brown, ovoid, .2 to .28 inch, apex acute, scales glabrous.

Leaves:

Deciduous, opposite, simple; petiole .16 to .28 inch, glabrous; blade nearly round to ovate in outline, 2.8 to 6 inches long, 3.2 to 6.8 inches wide, base truncate to nearly cordate, symmetric, margins prominently 3-5-lobed, each lobe with 1-4 prominent teeth, apex acute to acuminate, sinuses between principal lobes rounded or U-shaped, 1/3 to 1/2 distance to base, lower surface light green, bluish green, grayish green, whitish green, or yellowish green, glabrous or with tufts of hair in axils of veins, upper surface dark green to green, glabrous.

Flowers:

Inflorescences terminal from buds at or near ends of branches, umbel-like racemes, 8-14-flowered; peduncles .4 to .6 inch, glabrous; pedicels 1.6 to 2 inches, sparsely pubescent to lanate. Flowers unisexual, radially symmetric, produced as leaves emerge; sepals 5, connate, yellowish green, equal; calyx .12 to .24 inch, lobes ovate; petals absent; staminate: stamens 5-8, .24 to .28 inch; pistillate: pistil 1; style 1; stigma 2-lobed.

Fruit:

August-September; samaras, 2, initially greenish, eventually brown, prominently winged, wings 1 to 1.6 inch, divergent, glabrous; seed 1 per samara, reddish brown, compressed-ovate to compressed-ellipsoid, .2 to .31 inch long,.16 to .24 inch wide, smooth.

Habitat:

Mesic floodplain and upland forests, rocky north-facing slopes, especially on calcareous soils.

Distribution:

East 1/5 of Kansas

Origin:

Native

Comments:

Sugar maple is usually monoecious, sometimes dioecious.

Sugar maple flowers