A Tree a Week: Sugar Maple

The sugar maple is one of our most stately centurians on campus and serves as a focal point of the front lawn from Pruden. Easily 75 feet tall, her dense, elliptical crown is now full of fall color with yellow, orange, and red leaves. Her wide canopy provides excellent shade for passersby, and many Chatham Hall squirrels have taken up residence in her upper branches and foliage. Additionally, mammals, such as white-footed mice, voles, and moles feed on her maple seeds, campus deer browse her saplings, the larvae of the imperial moth consume her foliage, and the yellow-bellied sapsucker, a species of woodpecker, feeds on her sap. Her cavities also house nesting birds, and her exfoliating bark provides shelter to several species of bats as well.

Native to the hardwood forests of eastern Canada and the United States, the Sugar Maple is best known for its maple leaf, a palmate with five lobes, famously recognizable on the Canadian flag. Another fun fact is that her sap is most often used to make maple syrup and sugar. A quite versatile tree, our students have loved learning about the strength of her wood and the sweetness of her sap. Sugar Maples can live for more than 400 years. 

Next spring, watch for the inconspicuous green flowers of the Sugar Maple to adorn the tree like lace. The seed, within winged samaras, ripens and falls each autumn, relying on the wind for pollination.  

 

Interesting Fact: The strength of the wood of the Sugar Maple is reflected in its genus name Acer (Latin for sharp), which is a reference to how the ancient Romans used maple to make handles for their spears. Saccharum, Latin for sugar, refers to the high sugar content in the tree’s sap.  

 

 

Photos by Virginia Tech Dendrology