Sugar Maple Acer Saccharum

Size: 22.5 - 30 m (75-100 ft.), large canopy.

Leaves and Flowers: Leaves are opposite, simple, palmate (like a spread hand), and 5 lobed.

Flowers are small, 5 mm (1/5 in.), clusters of pale yellow-green, bell-shaped blossoms, hanging on stems; monoecious or dioecious (may have flowers of both sexes on the same plant).

Fruit is paired samaras (seeds with wings - helicopters), 2.5 cm (1 inch) long, loose, terminal (on the end) clusters, green becoming brown when mature.

Habitat: moist woods, north and east facing ravines, coves, floodplain slopes.

Range: provinces on the ocean and eastern Quebec westward north of the Great Lakes to Minnesota and southward to New Jersey and Pennsylvania and along the mountains to Georgia, westward through Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, and northern Missouri to central Iowa and Minnesota.

Uses: Maple Sugar was used to season food before the Europeans brought salt and pepper. In order to collect the sap, 3-4 weeks of days above freezing and nights below freezing are necessary. This must be done before the buds swell and the timing in Illinois was usually the first, second, or third week of February through the first, second, or third week of March. A 5.5 cm (2.5 in.) hole was made in the tree using spouts made from boxelder wood. The sap was caught in baskets of elm bark called "anep" made by the men. After boiling, the sap was cooled in wooden troughs in order to crystallize it. Sugaring was extremely important in this area.