Today we'll talk about the red maple tree, which many people think of as "Canada's tree." After all, a red-coloured generic maple leaf is featured on Canada's national flag. The Latin name for the red maple is the Acer rubrum. Some people also refer to this species as the water maple, the swamp maple, or the soft maple.
Red maple gets its name due to the brilliant red colour of the leaves before they drop in the fall. Here's a photo of a red maple, which stands out brilliantly in the early fall when surrounded by other species with leaves that stay green.
Even though many Canadians think of the red maple as "our" tree, it only grows throughout parts of Canada. Its range in the US is much larger! In Canada, red maple can be found very commonly throughout southern Ontario, southern Quebec, and the Maritime provinces. However, in the US, the range extends through all of the northeastern and southeastern parts of the country, right down to the southern tip of Florida and west into Texas. That's great, because if global warming raises our average temperatures in Canada in the next few decades, the red maple (and many other hardwoods) will thrive. Here's a range map, courtesy of Wikipedia:
This species can grow to be a fairly large tree. It is common for mature trees to be as much as thirty meters in height (100 feet) and to have a diameter at breast height that is a full meter thick (three feet). Of course, a tree grown in the open can have an even thicker trunk than one grown in a forest, which is the case with most species.
Red maple has a fairly thin bark. It is easy for this bark to become damaged by animals or other reasons, in which case fungi may be able to get into the tree, eventually leading to heart rot of the core of the tree. Although this maple can grow to be fairly large, it is not an extremely long lasting tree like many conifers. A mature red maple will often live for more than a century when left alone, but this is still not as long as species such as red spruce or eastern white pine.
Red maple has an ability to thrive in many types of ecosystems. It's a pioneer species, coming in rapidly after a forest has been disturbed. Thanks to its versatility, it can grow in direct sunlight or shade, in elevations from sea level to almost a thousand meters (3000 feet), in a wide pH range for soil acidity, and in everything from dry ground to poorly drained swamps. In fact, its ability to thrive in swampy areas is why it is often referred to as water maple or swamp maple.
As a forest matures, it is common for the red maples to eventually die out and be replaced by shade-tolerant succession species. However, due to widespread die-off of American elms and American chestnuts during the last couple of centuries, red maple is slowly becoming a more important component of mature forests throughout the eastern United States.
The leaves of the red maple are a very distinct feature of the species, as we've already mentioned. Here's a photo of some leaves before they start to turn colour in the fall:
And of course, you can compare their shape as being somewhat similar to that of the Canadian flag:
I should note that the maple leaf on the Canadian flag is NOT actually the red maple. It's a generic or stylized maple design, sort of a blend between red and sugar and a few other maples. There are about ten types of maple trees in Canada.
Red maple leaves have a very distinct shape. They also have slightly serrated edges, which helps distinguish them from the leaves of other maples. In the fall, as they are getting ready to die and fall from the tree, they lose their green colour and turn yellow/orange and sometimes to a bright red. Trees with male flowers are more likely to turn a brilliant red than trees with female flowers. Also, trees in colder areas (further north, higher elevation) are also more likely to be be a bright red instead of a more subdued orange.
One drawback with red maples: If you have horses, don't plant red maples in their paddocks or pastures. The leaves are toxic to horses.
Here are a few fun facts about red maple trees:
1. The red maple is the state tree of Rhode Island. Rhode Islanders love their reds, it seems. Their state bird is the red hen, and even the name Rhode Island comes from a Dutch reference to "reddish." That could refer to the reddish clay, or it may refer to the reddish colour of the maples.
2. Wood ducks often like to nest inside the cavities of swamp maples.
3. Red maples grow quite quickly, and can start producing seed when they are just four or five years old.
4. Red maple seeds are called samara, which is a seed type that means "dried fruit with wing." The seeds grow on the tree in pairs. As they fall, they separate and rotate slowly to the ground. This means that the wind is able to carry the seeds a fair distance away from the tree, to help propagate the species more widely. These seeds are fairly large (about an inch long) and are quite easy to spot. Here's a photo of a connected pair:
At Replant.ca Environmental, we sometimes plant red maple seedlings. There's no need to plant them in harvested or damaged areas that held red maple previously, because they regenerate quite well naturally. However, it can be helpful to plant this type of tree as part of a broader species mix in some afforestation projects where natural regen is unlikely, such as when turning unused pastureland back to forest. Here's a photo of some of the red maple seedlings that we were planting on several of our projects this past fall:
Thanks for reading!
- Jonathan Clark
Replant.ca Environmental is a Canadian company that plants trees for carbon capture and builds community forests. We also plant trees in national, provincial, and municipal public parks to mitigate damage from wildfires, storms, insects, and forest diseases. We operate thanks to numerous small contributions from the general public, in addition to larger project sponsorships from businesses and corporations around the world. If you'd like to learn how to show your support, visit our donations page. Even if you aren't able to make a contribution, we very much appreciate when people are able to share our posts or our website link on social media, to help spread the word about the work that we're doing!
Teachers are welcome to use content from this post for their classes. If you know a teacher who might like to use this information, please share it with them! The more that people learn about trees, the better our world will be.
To learn more about the various species that we plant, visit the conifers page or the deciduous (hardwoods) page on our website. Thanks so much for your interest!
Incidentally, our organization is often seeking additional land for our carbon capture projects. Please visit this link if you might know of a recently-harvested property that we could rebuild into a permanent legacy forest.
