Hi everyone,
I’m hoping that I can get some help identifying this variety of maple. My neighbor down the street has this one and the growth pattern coupled with the fantastic fall color are just what I’m looking for in my back yard. I was hoping it was in seed since the norways are currently but i must have missed it. Now i might just bite the bullet and go buy one but could use a hand figuring out what it is. Ps. Sorry about the images, not sure why it rotated some on upload.
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Not sure what the fall colors are, but the leaves look like it could be acer rubrum -red maple.
Maples of all stripes tend towards good fall coloration, as New Englanders and Arkansans will attest. Rubrum is popular, well suited to lots of conditions, and handsome.
Here’s a wiki on it:
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Acer saccharum, the sugar maple.
Dax
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Looks like sugar maple to me.
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I’ll put in a plug to buy a named cultivar of sugar maple. Like a fruit tree, you will be getting a tree that has proven reliability for fall color. JF Schmidt has good cultivars, but you have to get them from a local nursery retailer.
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You’ve got a source tree you like. Why not graft?
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I also thought it was a sugar maple given the growth habit but I feel like the leaves are less lobed than a sugar maple. Maybe I am wrong though. I’d feel a bit weird/intrusive if I walked up to the tree and picked a few leaves for comparison. @marknmt I am not sure about it being a red either. It never gets the crimson tones I would attribute to a red. I scrounged up a picture I took of it last fall:
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The leaves and color are not typical of red maple. That is the usual fall coloring of sugar maples here in PA, and the leaves look much more like sugar maple leaves.
edit - Norway maples in the fall do not get that ‘orange’ tint like in the picture as sugar maples do, at least not in the ones I have seen.
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Well, it’s not a silver, nor a Japanese, and the leaves don’t look right for a Norway, but Norway is the closest I can come up with if it’s not a sugar maple or a red maple.
Right now I lean towards sugar maple.
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It’s an Acer saccharum, common name sugar maple-rock maple-hard maple.
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I always thought red maples had less defined lobes while silver maples had very defined lobes. Sugars were in the middle
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If I can I will grab a few leaves for comparison. So far I am leaning toward sugar maple. Beautiful tree. My wife suggests we befriend them then steal their tree. Clearly she isn’t thinking of the logistics of such an undertaking.
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Its a little unclear with the previous leaf picture but that looks like sugar maple leaf. The lobes look right, but it would be good to see a close up leaf picture to be sure. The fall coloring is also a good indicator as sugar maples can get that beautiful gold color.
Red maples have leaves whose edges are more toothed and the fall coloration is more red-orange. Older trees also tend to have more plate like scales in their bark than sugar maples.
Norway maple does a good imitation of sugar maple but the lobe structure of the leaf doesn’t look right for that.
I’d like to see a few leaf closeups to make sure but I believe that’s sugar maple.
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Thank you everyone. I plan to go get a leaf or two this week for comparison to some other maples in the area.
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At the tree remove the petiole at the junction of the leaf. If white milky fluid is seen it’s Norway. If clear liquid is seen it’s a Sugar. Or, remove the petiole at the branch junction. I think the first time I tried this I cut the petiole in half. Regardless you’ll see either a white liquid or a clear liquid. Here’s a link showing what you’re looking for:
Dax
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Thank you Barkslip but I’m sure it isn’t a Norway. I’m heavily leaning towards sugar now.
Hello everyone,
I finally grabbed a set of leaves from the target tree and a Norway maple that is near by. The left is the target and the right is the Norway. I think it is pretty much certain that it is a Sugar maple now.
Very good. So what did the petiole cut show on both on your table?
Edit: I thought it was sugar from the beginning and clearly to me left on table is sugar and right is Norway.
Besides the point I guess. I just got confused when you impressed upon me that I must have said Norway, initially.
Dax
I didn’t have time to observe the cuts on the trees. I did grab another maple type for comparison. Target still on left but it seems a moot point at this point.
What is the leaf on the far right (the blue green one) in the bottom picture? It’s unusually large- bears a little resemblance to our sycamore maple tree’s leave (acer psuedoplatanus) but ours are more deeply lobed.
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