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Acer saccharinum (silver maple)

Acer saccharinum

If you want to see silver maples at their largest and finest, the Ohio Valley and watershed is the place to go. Acer saccharinum is a denizen of floodplains and riverine ecosystems, well known to Midwesterners. Its leaves feature the deepest lobe-forming "cuts" among the naturally occurring Midwestern maples, and their undersides are silvery-whitish. Since the leaf-stems of silver maple, like those of aspens and cottonwoods, are somewhat flattened on an axis perpendicular to the plane of the leaf, the leaves twist and turn in the slightest breeze, transforming a green tree into a silver one.

Distinguishing features for Acer saccharinum include the deeply cut leaves with silvery undersides and a top lobe that is skinnier at its base than at its midpoint; the red blossoms that appear in very early spring; the large "helicopter" samaras that appear soon thereafter and reach about 2 inches in length; and the distinctive bark, which develops cracks as it matures and eventually becomes scaly—often with the slightest hint of pink in its cracks. Red maple is the only tree that might cause confusion, but its leaves are not cut as deeply and the top lobe is widest at its base.

Silver maples turn a clear yellow color in the fall, unlike the other Midwestern maples, which turn orange and red. Over winter the flower buds are round and red, and the twigs, when crushed, have a foul odor.

In Midwestern towns silver maple was—and still is—a popular tree, planted along streets and in parks. Many of these trees were planted between 100 and 150 years

 

ago, and are reaching the end of their short (for trees) lifespan. Silver maples grow fast, reaching impressive heights quickly, but they do not last long. The result, in some Midwestern neighborhoods, is the fairly sudden demise of nearly all of the neighborhood's mature trees. Couple this with the fact that silver maples have relatively soft wood (an insurance adjuster once told us that if it weren't for silver maples his full-time job would be reduced to a half-time position) and you wind up with, well, a pretty bad candidate for urban planning and planting.

The riverine ecosystem is a much better place for silver maples than boulevards and parks. Here the tree is a colonizer of floodplains, following the dense covering of willows that usually comes in first, joining cottonwoods and sycamores to compose the riverside canopy. Wood nettles, common elderberry, riverbank grape, and poison ivy often dominate the understory and ground cover, while mosquitoes often dominate everything else. Truth be told, the Midwestern riverine ecosystem can be rather an unpleasant place in the summer, at least below the Great Lakes, where humidity and heat are notorious. Still, with a good riverside path and a cool morning, one can find belted kingfishers, great blue herons, and even an occasional bald eagle without being bitten and nettled too badly.

Range of Acer rubrum

midwestern range



Acer saccharinum
mature tree

 

Acer saccharinum
summer leaves

Acer saccharinum
fall leaves


Acer saccharinum
young silver maples covering a floodplain


Acer saccharinum
young bark

 

Acer saccharinum
maturing bark

 

Acer saccharinum
mature bark


Acer saccharinum
twig


Acer saccharinum
"helicopter" samaras

 

Acer saccharinum
flowers


Acer saccharinum
sapling

 

Acer saccharinum
silvery underleaves

 

Acer saccharinum
fall leaves being attacked by Rhytisma americanum (tar spot of maple), a harmless parasite; see the linked page for more information about the fungus



References: Harlow 1946, Peattie 1948, GN Jones 1971, Miller & Jaques 1978, Kricher & Morrison 1988, Preston 1989, RL Jones 2005, Mohlenbrock 2006, Kershaw 2007, Voss & Reznicek 2012, Mohlenbrock 2014.



Kuo, Michael & Melissa Kuo (September, 2017). Acer saccharinum (silver maple). Retrieved from the midwestnaturalist.com website: www.midwestnaturalist.com/acer_saccharinum.html

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