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| ## red maple {#red-maple .Title-Header}                               |
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| *Acer rubrum* L.                                                      |
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| Plant Symbol = ACRU                                                   |
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####### *Contributed By: USDA NRCS National Plant Data Center & the Biota of North America Program*

## Alternate common names

Carolina red maple, Drummond red maple, scarlet maple, soft maple, swamp
maple, water maple

## Uses 

Red maple has long been valued as an ornamental tree (shade, specimen,
autumn accent, or wet site) because of its ease of establishment, rapid
growth, brightly colored flowers and fruit, and fall leaf colors
(ranging from clear yellow to orange to vivid red) displaying coloring
during different seasons of the year. This tree is preferred over silver
maple or boxelder when a fast growing maple is needed. Red maple can be
planted onto many types of disturbed sites in rehabilitation projects.

The white, fine-grained wood is used for furniture, flooring, cabinetry,
paneling, veneer, musical instruments, tool handles, cutting boards,
butcher blocks, wooden bowls, boxes and crates, and many other uses. Red
maple is an excellent wood for fuel and is also used for saw timber and
pulpwood. But because of susceptibility to defects and disease and poor
form of individuals of sprout-clump origin, the timber is often low in
quality.

The sap of red maple is sometimes used for producing maple syrup.
Although its sap has only about half the sugar content as sugar maple
(*A. saccharum*), the syrup tastes good. Saponins in
![](media/image2.jpeg){width="2.2916666666666665in" height="3.4375in"}

the sap may cause excessive frothing of the concentrate.

Native Americans used red maple bark as an analgesic, wash for inflamed
eyes and cataracts, and as a remedy for hives and muscular aches. Tea
brewed from the inner bark has been used for treating coughs and
diarrhea. Pioneers made cinnamon-brown and black dyes from a bark
extract. Iron sulphate was added to the tannin from red maple bark to
make ink.

Because of the abundance and wide distribution red maple, its
early-produced pollen may be important to the biology of bees and other
pollen-dependent insects. Most references describe red maple as wind
pollinated, but insect pollination may be important, as many insects,
especially bees, visit the flowers. The seeds, buds and flowers are
eaten by various wildlife species. Squirrels and chipmunks store the
seeds. White-tailed deer, moose, elk browse red maple, and rabbits,
which find the stump sprouts especially palatable, especially in fall
and winter. Cavities in red maples in river floodplain communities are
often well suited for cavity nesters such as the wood duck and others.

## Status

Please consult the PLANTS Web site and your State Department of Natural
Resources for this plant's current status, such as, state noxious status
and wetland indicator values. This species has been introduced in many
areas of the U.S., outside of its native range.

## Description

*General:* Maple Family (Aceraceae). A native tree growing to 20 m tall,
usually with a narrow compact crown, single-boled, or often in clumps of
stems from one stump due to prolific sprouting; bark gray and thin,
becoming furrowed into long narrow scaly ridges on older trunks and
branches. The leaves are deciduous, opposite, long-petioled, blades 6-10
cm long and usually about as wide, with 3 shallow short-pointed lobes,
sometimes with two smaller lobes near the base, dull green and smooth
above, lighter green or silvery beneath and more or less hairy. The
flowers are pink to dark red, about 3 mm long, the male (staminate)
flowers fascicled and the female (pistillate) flowers in drooping
racemes. The flowers appear to be bisexual but they are functionally
male or female, and individual trees may be all male or all female or
some trees may have both types, each type on a separate branch (the
species technically polygamo-dioecious), or the flowers may be
functionally bisexual. Fruits: winged nutlets (samaras) in a pair, 2-2.5
cm long, clustered on long stalks, red to red-brown. The common name is
in reference to the red twigs, buds, flowers, and fall leaves.

*Variation within the species*: Red maple is highly variable and many
varieties and forms have been identified. The following varieties are
commonly recognized:

Var. *drummondii* (Hook. & Arn. ex Nutt.) Sarg.

Var. *trilobum* Torr. & Gray ex K. Koch

Red maple forms natural hybrids with silver maple (*A. saccharinum*):
*Acer* X *freemanii* E. Murray.

*Distribution:* Red maple is one of the most widely distributed trees in
eastern North America, extending from Newfoundland and Nova Scotia west
to southern Ontario, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Illinois, then south
through Missouri, eastern Oklahoma, and southern Texas, and east to
southern Florida. Its distribution has been increased past its native
range through broad cultivation and naturalization of the cultivated
forms.

## Adaptation 

Red maple is also one of the most successful and abundant species in the
Eastern Deciduous Forest, arguably [the]{.underline} most abundant,
reproducing aggressively by seeds and sprouts after fire, logging, and
abandonment of farmland. It is most abundant on bottomlands and is
tolerant of waterlogged soils and flooding, but it is a
"supergeneralist," growing on the widest variety of sites and in the
greatest range of conditions (sunny or shady, high or low nutrients, dry
or moist) of any North American species, from 0-900 meters. Because red
maple grows well in shade, is a key late-successional species, but it
also is a successful early successional invader of disturbed sites. "It
will probably continue to increase in dominance in the overstory during
the next century, causing widespread replacement of the historically
dominant trees of the forests of the eastern United States" (Abrams
1998, p. 355). Fire suppression has contributed greatly to the spread of
red maple (the thin bark makes it highly susceptible to fire damage) but
no single trait is responsible for its success.

Flowering: (February-)March-April, before the vegetative buds, one of
the first trees to flower in the spring; fruiting: April-June, before
leaf development is complete.

## Establishment

Red maple is a prolific seed producer and trees as young as four years
may begin to bear seeds. Good seed crops are usually produced in
alternate years. Seedbed requirements are minimal and up to 95% of
viable seeds germinate in the first 10 days; some survive in the duff
and germinate the following year. Because the mature seeds are dispersed
in spring and can germinate immediately, seedlings can become
established with a 3-4 month advantage over most associated woody
species. A bank of persistent seedlings often accumulates beneath a
forest canopy.

Seedlings can survive 3-5 years of moderate shade, but establishment and
early growth are best after disturbance. Male (staminate) trees may grow
faster than female ones. Average longevity for red maple is about 80-100
years, but trees are known to reach 200 years of age.

Vegetative reproduction under natural conditions is common from sprouts
from the stump or root crown or root suckers after fire or mechanical
damage. Buds located at the base of stems commonly sprout 2-6 weeks
after the stem is cut.

## Management

Red maple is easily transplanted and is one of the easiest trees to
grow. It is abundantly available in commerce, in ball-and-burlap and in
container, but where other fertile trees grow in the area, volunteers
usually are common. Propagation of cultivars is by budding onto seedling
understock or rooted stem cuttings -- the species form (although rarely
propagated) by rooted stem cuttings or by seeds. Softwood cuttings are
propagated under mist, using 1000-3000 ppm IBA, in about four weeks.

Despite its value and wide use (even to the point of over-planting in
some areas), red maple has some drawbacks as a lawn and street tree. As
a street tree, it often becomes too large, and it does not respond well
to some urban stresses, particularly protracted drought because of the
planting site or long spells of hot dry weather. One of the \"soft
maples,\" red maple branches are weak and somewhat brittle and are
subject to storm damage. The bark is thin and easily damaged by
mechanical impact (including lawn mowers, weed eaters, and even
increment boring) as well as fire, allowing entry of various damaging
fungi and insects -- butt rot, trunk rot fungi, heart rot, and stem
diseases are common in damaged trees, although pests and pathogens
otherwise are relatively few. As in some other maples, feeder roots
develop close to the surface and turf and other shallow-rooted plants
must compete directly with the tree for water. Turf beneath the canopy
often is stunted and mowing may be difficult because of the protruding
roots.

Growth in alkaline soils may lead to leaf chlorosis and a weakly growing
tree, especially among the cultivars. Fertilization in spring can help
overcome this. Graft incompatibilities have appeared between some
cultivars of red maple and their rootstock, the trees often breaking off
at the union between scion and rootstock, but propagation by softwood
cutting has circumvented this problem.

## Cultivars, Improved and Selected Materials (and area of origin)

Many cultivars of red maple have been developed. Selections have been
made for color tints and brightness, timing of onset of coloration,
crown shape and branching pattern, cold hardiness, leaf size, only male
flowers (no seeds or seedlings), and leafhopper resistance.

## References 

Abrams, M. 1998. *The red maple paradox. What explains the widespread
expansion of red maple in eastern forests?* Bioscience (May), 355-364.

Anonymous 2000. *Why is swamp thing (red maple) taking over the
forests?* Univ. of Connecticut Cooperative Extension Forestry. AUG00.
\<www.canr.uconn.edu/ces/forest/redmaple.htm\>

Koelling, M.R. & R.B. Heiligmann (eds.) 1996. *North American maple
syrup producers manual*. Ohio State Univ. Extension Bull. 856. AUG00.
\<http://www.ag.ohio-state.edu/\~ohioline/b856/index.html\>

Li, H.-L. 1960. *The cultivated maples*. Morris Arbor. Bull. 11:41-47.

Tirmenstein, D.A. 1991. *Acer rubrum*. IN: W.C. Fischer (compiler). *The
fire effects information system* \[data base\]. USDA, Forest Service,
Intermountain Research Station, Intermountain Fire Sciences Laboratory,
Missoula, Montana.

Walters, R.S. & H.W. Yawney 1990. *Acer rubrum* L. Red maple. Pp. 60-69,
IN: R.M. Burns and B.H. Honkala (tech. coords.). *Silvics of North
America*. *Volume 2.* *Hardwoods*. USDA, Forest Service Agric. Handbook
654, Washington, D.C.

## Prepared By

*Guy Nesom*, BONAP, North Carolina Botanical Garden, University of North
Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina

## Species Coordinator

*Lincoln Moore*, USDA NRCS National Plant Data Center, Baton Rouge,
Louisiana

Edited: 13nov00 jsp;07feb03ahv; 24may06jsp

For more information about this and other plants, please contact your
local NRCS field office or Conservation District, and visit the PLANTS
Web site\<[http://plants.usda.gov](http://plants.usda.gov/)\> or the
Plant Materials Program Web site
\<[http://Plant-Materials.nrcs.usda.gov](http://Plant-Materials.nrcs.usda.gov/)\>

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