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West Virginia Trees

Chapter 109: BLACK SUGAR MAPLE
By A. B. Brooks
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Nature/Gardening/Animals

About This Book

A practical field guide to the native and introduced trees of West Virginia, providing keys based mainly on leaves and fruits, concise family and species descriptions, and detailed line drawings for about 101 native species. It organizes trees by botanical families, gives brief flower notes, a glossary of terms, and suggestions for identifying specimens; occasional introduced species and shrubs are noted. The bulletin emphasizes simplicity for non-specialists, offers measurements and habit descriptions for each species, and includes administrative prefatory material. Its aim is to aid lay readers and students in tree identification and to encourage local interest in forestry.

BLACK SUGAR MAPLE

Acer saccharum nigrum, (Michx. f.) Britt.

Form.—Height 75-90 feet, diameter 2-3½ feet; trunk and crown as in sugar maple.

Leaves.—Opposite, simple, 5-6 inches long, wider than long, 3-5-lobed, the lower lobes often reduced to a shallow rounded tooth, thick and firm, green and usually downy beneath.

Flowers.—May, with the leaves; monoecious, arranged in umbel-like corymbs, yellow, on slender, hairy pedicels.

Fruit.—Matures in autumn; paired samaras clustered on drooping pedicels, wings slightly diverging.

Bark.—Usually very dark gray, furrowed deeply.

Wood.—Hard, heavy, strong, close-grained, light yellow or brownish, with thin, lighter sapwood.

Range.—Quebec and western New Hampshire, southward and westward.

Distribution in West Virginia.—Less common than sugar maple, but often growing with it on low ground. Observed in the following counties: Lewis, Monongalia, Randolph, Tyler, Upshur, Webster and Wetzel.

Habitat.—Moist soil of river bottoms and slopes.

Notes.—This tree, which is classed as a sub-species of the common sugar maple, can scarcely be distinguished from the latter, except by the leaves which are thicker, usually dropping, less deeply lobed and slightly hairy beneath.