Temple’s Upright Sugar Maple
In my humble opinion, the Sugar Maple is the king of showy autumn foliage; its brilliant yellow to orange-red foliage simply screams, especially in direct sunlight. I happened across this stunning tree at the Morton Arboretum, in Lisle, Illinois. The University of Florida says it’s a slow-to-moderate grower to 60 feet with a spread of 15 feet or less [2]; this specimen is surely all that at 54 years.
Sometimes called hard maple or rock maple, this is one of the largest and most important of our North American hardwoods. Sugar Maple grows on approximately 31 million acres (about 9%) of the hardwood forests in midwest and northeast North America. The greatest commercial sawtimber volumes are presently harvested in Michigan, New York, Maine, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. In most regions, both the sawtimber and growing stock volumes are increasing, with increased production of saw logs, pulpwood, and more recently, firewood.
The fruit of the sugar maple, called a samara, is a double-winged, papery seed-bearing fruit, commonly called a “helicopter” or “whirlybird.” The aerodynamic properties allow the seeds to be dispersed, in a fresh breeze, more than 100 meters (330 feet) from the parent tree. A mature sugar maple can produce between 3,000 and 9,000 pounds of seeds each season.
See also: Type species and Green Mountain Sugar Maples
North American Insects & Spiders
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