Range and Habitat
Sugar Maple (Acer saccharum) ranges from Nova Scotia and Gaspe west across southern Canada to Minnesota, and south throughout New England to Pennsylvania, then further south in the mountains to northern Georgia, and westward to Missouri. Sugar Maple favors rich, moist woods with deep, well-drained soils but also grows well in somewhat drier habitats. Unlike its relative, Red Maple (Acer rubrum), it is intolerant of flooding and rarely inhabits active floodplains. In the southern part of its range it is found at middle elevations up to the ridgelines at over 1500 meters; in New England and New York it inhabits the valleys and upslope to about 750 meters (2500 ft.).
Description and Ecology
Sugar Maple is a large tree that can grow to be 25 to 35 meters tall, with a bole diameter of one meter or more; on favorable sites it may be 40 meters in height and live for more than 300 years. Trees growing in the open have relatively short trunks, and a canopy spread roughly two-thirds the height. The taproot on saplings goes deep, thereafter the tree sends out an extensive system of lateral roots. The bark is gray and smooth on young trees, becoming rough and furrowed with age.
The leaves have five pointed lobes separated by rounded sinuses and turn attractive shades of yellow, orange, and red in autumn (a stylized version of a leaf is depicted on the national flag of Canada). The flowers are small, greenish-yellow, and held in drooping clusters from May to early June. Pollination is by wind. The fruits are paired samaras with prominent globose seeds, seen from late June into October. Wind dispersal from the parent tree can be up to 100 meters, although 15 meters is average. Seeds can overwinter and germinate in the spring but usually do not survive for more than one year in the soil, an ability that foresters term seed banking. The seeds are large for a maple and are eaten by Squirrels and other small mammals; the twigs are browsed by White-tailed Deer, Moose, and Snowshoe Hare.
Sugar Maple may grow in pure stands, but it is more often found in mature hardwood-conifer forests sharing habitat with Yellow Birch, American Beech, Red Oak, White Oak, White Pine, and Eastern Hemlock, among a few others. A favorable characteristic of this species is that the saplings are highly shade tolerant, biding their time in the understory until a disturbance, such as blowdown or branch fall, creates an opening in the canopy. The young trees then grow quickly and are often successful in their attempt to overtop their rivals and take their place in the forest pantheon.
Wood
The wood of Sugar Maple is strong, hard, and heavy, more so than any other species of Maple. The reddish-brown heartwood is sometimes used but it is the cream-colored sapwood, called Hard Maple by the lumberman, that is especially in demand. This is favored for fine furniture, quality flooring, and veneer. Specialty uses are many and include stringed instruments, tool handles, gunstocks, and sporting goods (Sugar Maple is the most popular wood for making the baseball bats used by professional players). The wood is not rot resistant, however, so it is used for indoor applications only, and it does not take stain easily without careful preparation of the surface.
Maple Syrup
Maple syrup and its derivatives (maple sugar, maple cream) are an important part of the economy of eastern Canada and the northeastern United States, and yields have been increasing in the 21st century. In 2020 Canada produced over 14 million gallons, most of that from Quebec, worth $550 million and accounting for 75% of world production. The United States is responsible for the rest, with just over half of U. S. production coming from Vermont.
The first people to harvest the sap, of course, were Native Americans, who set up temporary camps in maple groves in late winter and early spring. They made a cut through the bark with an axe and inserted a hollow hardwood stem as a spile, letting the sap drip into a birch bark bowl. The collected sap was then converted to syrup – one method was by pouring it into a prostrate tree trunk hollowed out to form a trough. Placing hot stones into the trough caused the water to boil off as steam, concentrating the sap. The resulting syrup was commonly used as a sauce in cooking and to cure venison to help preserve and flavor it for winter consumption (the process of maple-curing meats continues to this day). Further boiling and stirring of the syrup resulted in maple sugar, which was stored to be eaten later or used as a trade item.
The early colonists, both English and French, were quick to adopt the native ways, replacing the hollow stems with wooden spouts and the hollowed-out log with iron kettles. Over the years various ways of collecting the sap and boiling it down to syrup have been devised, each method an improvement on the old. Wooden spouts were replaced by metal taps, and bark bowls were supplanted by wooden buckets, and later by galvanized buckets. The boiling kettles became flat metal receptacles called evaporators, increasing the surface area for evaporation, and making the process more efficient. Today in the sugar bush even the galvanized collecting buckets have oftentimes been replaced – by plastic tubing that brings the sap directly from the tree to the sugar shack. No matter the method, the final product remains the same – delightfully sweet and delicious maple syrup!
References
Peattie, Donald Culross. 1950. A Natural History of Trees of Eastern and Central North America. Houghton Mifflin, Boston.
Tirmenstein, D.A. 1991. Acer saccharum. In: USDA. Fire Effects Information System. [Online] (www.feis-crs.org).
University of Maine Cooperative Extension, Bulletin #7036. Harvesting Maple Syrup. [Online] (https://extension.umaine.edu/publications/7036e).