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The Monday Garden
Shades of Maple: Identification by Bud
Issue No. 157 - March 27, 2005
by Sue Sweeney
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Most tree buds are wonderful tiny sculptures, joys of winter and
very early spring that are too often left unappreciated. Maple
tree buds are no exception. To add to The Monday Garden
series on our wonderful native maples and not-so-wonderful
invasive ones, this issue covers the buds.
It’s not hard to distinguish sugar (Acer saccharum),
box elder (Acer negundo), Norway (Acer platanoides),
and sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus) maples by the buds
alone. You also can able tell that a tree is a maple and
definitely a red (Acer rubrum) or a silver (Acer
saccharinum), but telling a red from a silver by the buds
alone is a tricky business, beyond the scope of this article
(and usually my ken).
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| picture: early waking insect
embraces the terminal bud of a young silver maple, Mill River at Scalzi
Park March 2005. |
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| Ash or maple? To get started, North
American trees with opposite branching are most likely to be ashes or
maples. You can rule out the ashes by looking for a flat-topped, thick
bud with a pronounced triangular shape; look also for a diamond pattern
to the bark in mature trees. |
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| pictures: buds and barks of
various ashes; note the fat, thick, triangle top of the twig and the
diamond shaped patterns of the bark. Stamford, CT, March 2005
respectively: the Mill River at Scalzi Park, the Tully Center, and Cove
Island. |
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Cross-breeeding: Remember that cross breeding is
the rule among trees of the same family. While
cross-breeding might be good for tree health, it does
make identification difficult. (Is Homeland Security
aware of tree stealth?) As a general matter, for maples
at least, it’s best to confirm a tentative ID using at
least three aspects of the tree such as bark, form,
buds, leaves, etc. Even then, be only 90% certain until
you’ve watched the tree go through its annual cycle and
compared it to several others of the same species. Go to
Issue 134 (October 16, 2004) for an overview of these
other features. There are also separate articles on
The Monday Garden site on most of the maple
trees. Sugar maples: The sugars have buds that
remind some observers of upside-down sugar cones (or at
least it’s a good mnemonic). To me, the precise,
overlapping bud scales look like the spires of an art
deco building. The terminal buds often come in groups of
three, arranged like a trident. Compared to other
maples, the sugar buds are smaller and finer cut, with
sharp points. Caution: other maples’ buds can resemble
sugars when the buds first peek out. I find this
especially true of silvers and reds but then the tree’s
bark or form may help confirm ID. If the bark has that
very curvy look that only sugars (sometimes) can have,
or if the tree has the low, multiple-trunk crotch with
upward curving branches that only sugars (sometimes)
have, then you can be pretty sure that you have a sugar.
If neither of these tell-tales are present, you may need
to wait until the buds mature before confirming the
identification.
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| pictures: sugar maple buds,
Stamford CT,Winter 2004-2005, respectively, the First Presbyterian
Church, and Strawberry Hill. |
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Conversely, when you’re being confused by sugar, red
and/or Norway maple leaves with “cross-over”
characteristics, you may be able to sort the trees out
by the buds.
Second caution: some sugar maple buds are almost dead
ringers for red oak buds, so make sure you’ve checked
for opposite branching and are checking the bark.
Red maples: Many of the reds go from tiny
sugar-maple like bud points to big (about half pea-size)
red Christmas ball buds so early that you can use the
buds as an ID point almost year round. However, the buds
of some reds don’t mature until fall or winter.
Whatever, by early spring, most reds will have
eye-popping deep red ball clusters. The reds also tend
to have very silvery-gray bark that’s smooth on young
trees but rough, or even shaggy, on older ones.
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| picture: the characteristic
bud clusters of a red maple on light gray twigs. First Presbyterian
Church, Stamford CT March 2005. |
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| Silver maples: The silver maples tend
to swell their buds much later than the reds but then bloom first in the
spring. So, it’s often hard to tell by the buds alone if you have a red
that’s not fully swelled its buds or a silver. The very first tree to
bloom in my area, though, is the silver. It can beat the crocus and is a
major boon to early-waking pollen and nectar eaters. Some times, the
bark is not just rough but shredded and pealing with an orange undercoat
or the trunk on a very old tree has become very silver and has developed
amazing lumps. Very young silver saplings tend to have bright orange
twigs and very red bud scales. If any of these conditions are present,
you probably have silver. However, silvers and reds are very closely
related and you may need to wait until you see the flowers, leaves, or
seeds (“samaras”) to be certain. |
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| pictures: silver maples, bud
to flower. Stamford, CT March 2005. Scalzi Park and Strawberry Hill.
twigs. |
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| pictures: silver maple
trunks, Stamford CT March 2005 Chester Street and Cove Island |
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| Box elder: The box elder (the
ash-leafed maple – see Issue 138, November 14, 2004) may be considered a
“trash tree” but the buds are beautiful: downy silver and rose on bright
green to olive green shiny twigs. If you need confirmation, look at how
the old bud scale scars between the side buds meet in the middle with a
point. |
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| pictures: Box elder buds,
Cove Island, Stamford CT March 2005 |
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| Norway maples: The nastily invasive Norways have
the biggest, fattest buds; dramatic in fact. The bud scales are deep
mahogany often with lime green tinting. When the bud scales pop, some
Norways have a gold hairy under-covering over the flowers-to-be. Again,
the buds can start as tiny points like a sugar but look for the smooth,
textured gray-brown bark. |
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| pictures: Norway maples buds Stamford CT
March 2005, Picture 1: Cove Island; Pictures 2-4 Strawberry Hill |
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Sycamore Maples: The invasive sycamore maples
have green buds a bit smaller than the Norways’ but
similarly shaped. The sycamore maple tree itself is a
Norway-ish shape but the bark ages differently. It can
stay very smooth or get squarish cracks and patches,
almost like a fruit tree.
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| pictures: sycamore maple buds and trunk,
Stamford CT March 2005, Grayrock and Forest Streets. |
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