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There are 9 species of maple native within Alabama and/or the adjacent states.  All of the native species if of sufficient size are suitable for tapping for maple syrup, which I’ll try the first syrup season after I get some tree taps, syrup buckets, etc.  Maple syrup production began after Native Americans notice that sapsucker wells continue to bleed.  This is also a food source for hummingbirds arriving in spring.  The exotic maples have become invasive in some parts of the country most notorious is Norway maple, which has milky sap making is unsuitable for syrup.  In a landscape maples are used for shade and/or specimen trees due to the excellent fall color.  Keys to identify a maple are opposite leaves and most distinctively paired winged seed known as keys.

A few cautions should be considered when choosing maples for a landscape.  Most maples have a tendency to produce surface roots so they should be kept away from pavement, as well as water and sewer lines.  Because maples are adapted to shade the bark of young trees needs to be protected from afternoon sun on freezing nights because the sap will rise on the warm side of the tree then freeze after sunset causing the bark to split.  This was the reason for painting the trunk of trees white, but this caused additional problems by protecting fungus under the paint and has been discontinued as a landscape practice.  Additional problems or qualities such as fall color are given on a per species basis.

Red maple, Acer rubrum L., has a wide geographic range, but those in the north will not tolerate heat while those in the south will not survive cold, therefore, it is best to get trees that have a genetic source near your locale.  A variety of red maple, A. rubrum L. var. drummondii (Hook. & Arn. ex Nutt.) Sarg., which can be distinguished by leaves that have very fuzzy undersides, is a wetland indicator and is better in wet areas than other varieties even though any red maple is good in a wet area.  True to the name red is a notable color year round besides just fall although yellow and orange leaves can even occur on the same tree.  Other parts that are red going from winter through the next summer include the bud, flowers, fruits, and petioles, which is the part of the leaf between the stem and the blade.  The current state champion red maple in Alabama is 84 feet tall, 92 inches around the trunk and has an average spread of 58 feet.

Sugar maple, A. saccharum Marsh., is most famous for maple syrup since it has the highest concentration of sugar and the leaf silhouette on the flag of Canada.  Ranging from south to north there are three similar species Florida maple, A. barbatum Michx., chalk maple, A. leucoderme Small, and black maple, A. nigrum Michx. f., which makes it a little easier to tell if one of them is adapted to your climate, the ranges overlap somewhat near the boundary between Alabama and Tennessee.  One detail is that all of these have is entire rather than toothed leaf margins like the other maples.  Chalk maple is distinctive for is whitish bark, but it is often overlooked due to its smaller size in all parts considering that the Alabama state champion is only 51 feet tall, 43 inches around the trunk, and with a limb spread of 36 feet compared respectively to 68 feet, 45 inches and 46 feet for Florida maple and 80 feet, 130 inches, and 64 feet for sugar maple, which is in Madison County, but black maple does not have a current champion and data on the range in Alabama is suspect due to possible misidentification.

Silver maple, A. saccharinum L., naturally grows near water, but should not be planted near building or utilities due to brittle branches that can easily break during wind or ice storms.  The state champion is also the largest maple in Alabama at 69 feet tall, 197 inches around, and 59 feet average spread.  Mountain maple, A. spicatum Lam., was reported from Alabama on Lookout Mountain near Eberhart Point in the Little River Canyon Preserve, but no existing population has been confirmed.  Moose maple or striped maple, A. pensylvanicum L., is shrubby and it is best known for striped bark, but it ranges south only to the mountains in northeast Georgia.  All of these have a predominately yellow fall color.

      Box-elder, A. negundo L., is also known as ash-leaved maple due to having compound leaves like ash rather than the simple palmately veined leaves of the other maples.  Note the hyphens in the common names where these are use to indicate that the name only indicates a similarity with an unrelated species such as ash and elder in this case rather than box, which indicates the use for crates.  Twigs are green, but the fall color is not as impressive as any of the others.  The biggest concern with box-elder is that it produces many seeds, which results in unwanted seedling.  I have seen fallow fields become impenetrable thickets of nothing but box-elder saplings.  This may also explain why box-elder and its varieties have the widest native range of any hardwood tree in North America, and I have seen them at Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico where the leaves are trifoliate and the tree is often just a shrub thus they are almost unrecognizable as box-elder.  There is currently no state champion in Alabama, but my nomination for 2011 is pending.