The red maple can be considered weedy or even invasive in young, highly disturbed forests, especially frequently logged forests. It is also the state tree of Rhode Island. It is used commercially on a small scale for maple syrup production and for its medium to high quality lumber. Due to its attractive fall foliage and pleasing form, it is often used as a shade tree for landscapes. It grows well from sea level to about 900 m (3,000 ft). It can be found growing in swamps, on poor, dry soils, and almost anywhere in between. Over most of its range, red maple is adaptable to a very wide range of site conditions, perhaps more so than any other tree in eastern North America. Among these features, however, it is best known for its brilliant deep scarlet foliage in autumn. Its flowers, petioles, twigs, and seeds are all red to varying degrees. At maturity, it often attains a height around 30 m (100 ft). Many of its features, especially its leaves, are quite variable in form. The red maple ranges from southeastern Manitoba around the Lake of the Woods on the border with Ontario and Minnesota, east to Newfoundland, south to Florida, and southwest to East Texas. Forest Service recognizes it as the most abundant native tree in eastern North America. ex Nutt.) SmallĪcer rubrum, the red maple, also known as swamp maple, water maple, or soft maple, is one of the most common and widespread deciduous trees of eastern and central North America. Acer microphyllum Pax 1886 not Opiz 1824.Acer hypoleucum K.Koch 1869 not Hayata 1913.At this time, the syrup produced will have a funny taste, and most of the sap will be recruited to the leaves so that the water and sugar can be used in biological processes. This is a major concern for sugar maples and the organisms that depend on this keystone species.ĭid you know? Sugarers know to stop tapping their trees when the buds of maple trees “break,” giving rise to spring’s new leaves. The stressors and causes for maple decline are not precisely clear, but include acid deposition in soils from rains and climate change. Studies by scientists from the Harvard Forest in Petersham, Massachusetts, suggest that in the last few decades, some maple sugar trees have been exhibiting reduced productivity and growth. Because the trees depend on unique springtime fluctuations in temperature from day to night, shorter winters are disruptive for the maple sugaring season. Increases in New England’s temperatures will push maple sugar growth further north, into Canada. Warmer weather stresses the trees and the months in which tapping occurs in more Southern states, such as Virginia, has already shifted because of seasonal climate changes. Climate change threatens to severely impact the growth of sugar maples in New England, which depend on the region’s springtime cycles of freezing nights and mild, sunny days for sugar-producing processes. CC BY-SA 2.5Įastern North American sugar maples support a multibillion-dollar syrup industry. Even when using a vacuum-tubing system to increase the amount of sap exiting the tree, maple-sugaring takes only a fraction of the tree’s available carbohydrates. This creates a unique thawing and freezing cycles that increase pressure inside the tree’s vasculature and force sap out of the tap.ĭid you know? The process of tapping sap from trees does not harm maples. “Tapping” the trees occurs in spring when nights are below freezing and daytime sunshine brings the temperatures above freezing. A single tree can produce about 20 gallons of sap in the short season for maple sugaring. Improvements in technology have made boiling sap more efficient, but it still takes 40 or more gallons of boiled-down maple sap to make one gallon of maple syrup. Sap processing has not changed much over the centuries. However, processing maple sap is extremely labor-intensive, and thus, far more expensive to produce. Indeed, Jefferson had his own maple plantation at Monticello. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, some people, including Thomas Jefferson, thought that maple sugar could become an alternative to cane sugar. French explorers and fur trappers who came to North America traded for these maple syrup products. It is unknown whether Native Americans or European settlers were the first to boil sugar maple sap, but both were using the process by the eighteenth century. Myths and legends about maple trees and syrup were widespread among the tribes. They made maple candies, maple drinks, and used maple syrup as a cooking ingredient. Native Americans processed sugar maple sap long before Europeans arrived in the northeast region of the United States.
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