Silver Maple
White Maple
(Acer saccharinum Linnaeus)

Bark | Twigs | Leaves | Fruit | Outstanding Features
Red Maple | Silver Maple | Black Maple | Box Elder | Sugar Maple

The silver maple is generally distributed throughout the State, but is not nearly as common as is red maple. It prefers the same general moist soil conditions. The wood is used for the same purposes as the red maple, with which it is included under the term "soft maple" by lumbermen. Frequently it is planted as a shade tree on account of its rapid growth. However, because of its weak structure, it should not be planted near buildings, picnic tables, or parking areas.

Bark - on young trunks smooth, gray in color with reddish tinge; with age becoming reddish brown in color, more or less furrowed, the surface separating in long thin flakes that become free at the ends and flake off.

Twigs - similar to red maple, but having a slight to moderately strong odor when broken or crushed.

Winter buds - similar to red maple but larger, usually very dense clusters of lateral buds.

Leaves - simple, opposite, from 3 to 5 inches long, fully as wide, 5-lobed; margins of lobes coarsely serrate; clefts between lobes, particularly the middle two, very deep; at maturity leaves pale green in color above and silvery white below, hence the name "silver maple."

Fruit - maple keys, much larger than in the red maple though maturing at about the same time in the spring. Wings-more widely divergent than those of the red maple. Sometimes only one side of the key develops.

Outstanding features - silvery bark on upper limbs; deeply cut clefts between coarse-toothed lobes; rank odor from crushed twig; large-winged keys.