A deciduous hardwood of northeastern North America famed for spectacular autumn colour and as the source of maple syrup.
Where it grows
Sugar maple ranges from Nova Scotia and Ontario south through New England and the Appalachians to Tennessee, west to Minnesota and Iowa. It prefers deep, moist, well-drained soils and forms the iconic New England fall foliage along with beech and yellow birch.
How to recognise it
The leaves are the source of the Canadian flag — five lobes, smoothly U-shaped between, lacking the sharp teeth of red and silver maple. Autumn colour ranges from brilliant gold through orange to fiery red. The bark is grey, smooth on young trees, and forms long vertical plates that curl up at the edges with age.
Uses
Each February to April, rising daytime temperatures push sap up the trunks, and producers tap the trees to boil down the watery sap (about 40 to 1 ratio) into maple syrup. The dense, pale heartwood — sometimes figured as bird’s-eye or curly maple — is the standard for bowling lanes, butcher blocks, dance floors, and electric guitar tops.
Ecology
Sugar maple is the climax species of the northern hardwood forest, casting deep shade that suppresses competitors and slowly outlasting them.