a little Maple identifying help please

[jeff...]

Going out to mark a bunch of maple this weekend on a 10 acre mature woodlot that's going to be clear cut starting in the next few weeks, I think it's to make room for some kind supper market chain store. I guess most that pretty forest will become black top

I was out there a few weeks ago looking around with a logger friend of mine who has the contract to clear the timber off the land. I noticed several different kinds of maple, can anyone point me to different kinds of maple that grow around here (forest trees) and what's better for lumber than the other?

I pay my friend top dollar for top quality saw logs, he's trying to make a living and support a family just like the next guy and anyways I don't mind paying top dollar for good quality forest logs. Instead of just loading them on a truck and sending them to a log yard, He'll go out of his way to set aside the ones I mark, that's what friends do

Thanks

[DaveO]

Jeff, your basic Maple species in this area are Acer rubrum- Red Maple, A. saccharinum - Silver Maple, and A. negundo - Box Elder. Sometimes you can find A. saccharum - Sugar Maple, but it is mostly planted and not a forest tree.
The best identification techinque I can offer is by the leaf shape. Red Maple has a tree lobed leaf, like a ducks foot. Silver Maple has a fine toothed, very disected leaf where the intersections between lobes comes to a sharp V shape (SilVer), Sugar Maple has a much more rounded intersection between lobes the form a U shape (SUgar).
Here is a pretty good site for Maple ID -
http://www.massmaple.org/treeID.html

HTH, Dave

[DaveO]

Oh yea, BTW. All but the Sugar Maple are considered Soft Maple. Red Maple is more desirable over Silver Maple for lumber due to it's slower growth habit. Find some spalting Box Elder and you have yourself a turners gold mine.
I get first dibs on anything funky


Dave

[jeff...]

Dave Thanks you da man !!! Thinking about spalting a few logs and if I can find me a red hearted boxelder like this , I'll be one happy guy

Yep you got first dibs on anything funky or curly.

Thanks again

[jeff...]

Originally Posted by DaveO

Jeff, your basic Maple species in this area are Acer rubrum- Red Maple, A. saccharinum - Silver Maple, and A. negundo - Box Elder. Sometimes you can find A. saccharum - Sugar Maple, but it is mostly planted and not a forest tree.
The best identification techinque I can offer is by the leaf shape. Red Maple has a tree lobed leaf, like a ducks foot. Silver Maple has a fine toothed, very disected leaf where the intersections between lobes comes to a sharp V shape (SilVer), Sugar Maple has a much more rounded intersection between lobes the form a U shape (SUgar).
Here is a pretty good site for Maple ID -
http://www.massmaple.org/treeID.html

HTH, Dave

What's the three lobed one? and what is this 5 lobed one one? There are so many maples out there, I'm looking and saying ok it's a maple but what kind . Could you please point me to a few species that'll make good lumber, which ones I should be looking for? Maybe I should just come pick you up and we can take a walk with some red tape. Dave and Jeff in the woods marking trees, now that could be dangerous



Thanks

[DaveO]

Jeff, I am going to have to call that Red Maple, unless the underside of the leaf is a silver color. I would be happy to cruse some timber with you some day. I use to do it all the time with my college roommate a Forestry major.
You're not going to find a Maple tree that won't be a good lumber tree, they all are. Box Elder isn't the best for dimensional stock, but it looks so different from the normal Maple leaf style, folks often don't even know it is in the same genus.

Dave

[jeff...]

Originally Posted by DaveO

Jeff, I am going to have to call that Red Maple, unless the underside of the leaf is a silver color. I would be happy to cruse some timber with you some day. I use to do it all the time with my college roommate a Forestry major.
You're not going to find a Maple tree that won't be a good lumber tree, they all are. Box Elder isn't the best for dimensional stock, but it looks so different from the normal Maple leaf style, folks often don't even know it is in the same genus.

Dave

Ok so all maples are good for lumber that makes it a lot easier on me . There's several different kinds out there mostly with the leaf like I pictured, no silver on the under side. so those are red maples - cool.

The ones with silver on the under side of the leaf are those silver maples? I'm thinking so, kind of obvious hu?

Ok then there are some out there with only 3 lobes on the leaf and no silver on the underside of the leaf - but the bark is deeply trenched and very pronounced, I noticed on a few of the trees the bark twists up the tree like a barbershop pole and on others the bark is pretty straight. They have the same kind of leaf, 3 lobes. What kind of maple are those trees?

Thanks

[DaveO]

More than likely they are also Red Maple, the twist in the bark is due to growing stresses.
Here is a good source of info and a dichotomous key to the identification of the Southeastern Maple species.
http://www.cas.vanderbilt.edu/bioima.../maple-key.htm

http://www.cas.vanderbilt.edu/bioima...are-maples.htm

HTH,
Dave

[DaveO]

I don't know now that I look more at the leaves that seems to very closely resemble the leaf of a Sugar Maple. But I know that they don't tolerate the heat in this area and are mostly found in the mountains of the state. If it is a Sugar Maple, than it's "Hard" Maple, and still a good thing to harvest.

Dave

[jeff...]

This is it - Striped Maple (Acer pensylvanicum) what ever that is?

http://www.cas.vanderbilt.edu/bioima...ecies/acpe.htm

Found it off one of the links from the page you posted above.

http://www.cas.vanderbilt.edu/bioima...are-maples.htm

I seen NO boxelder out there, not a one Somebody please find me a nice boxelder to play with.

I am going to mark a few thousand board feet of nice clear red maple, the biggest straightest ones I can find and if this Striped Maple is good for lumber? I'll mark some of that too. The stripped maple looks to be more promising for figure than the red maple does.. the stripped maple has some character to it, where are the Red Maples are pretty straight. I can't got too wild out there I gotta pay for what I mark

Thanks Dave

[DaveO]

Jeff, bookmark that site. It is a wealth of info on native trees. It also has a similar comparison page for the Oaks. I spent about an hour just going through all what it had to offer, last night.....very interesting.
Dave

[jeff...]

Originally Posted by DaveO

Jeff, bookmark that site. It is a wealth of info on native trees. It also has a similar comparison page for the Oaks. I spent about an hour just going through all what it had to offer, last night.....very interesting.
Dave

Yeah it is a good site and I did bookmark it. I hope that hour was spent on research for the book your going to write . After a little further research the 3 lobed maple leaf can not be a striped maple because they are bigger than a small tree or shrub, it's most defiantly a tree. We'll back to digging again...

Thanks for the link

[Gofor]

Jeff, the picture you posted may also be a Florida Maple (Acer barbatum). It is a southern version of the sugar maple and grows from SE Virginia down to Florida. Grows to 60' and bark goes from smooth to rough and furrowed. (ref: Audubon field guide).

Go

[jeff...]

Originally Posted by Gofor

Jeff, the picture you posted may also be a Florida Maple (Acer barbatum). It is a southern version of the sugar maple and grows from SE Virginia down to Florida. Grows to 60' and bark goes from smooth to rough and furrowed. (ref: Audubon field guide).

Go

Wonder if I should tap it and see it a little honey lager flows out?

[Kyle]

Originally Posted by jeff...

This is it - Striped Maple (Acer pensylvanicum) what ever that is?

http://www.cas.vanderbilt.edu/bioima...ecies/acpe.htm

Found it off one of the links from the page you posted above.

http://www.cas.vanderbilt.edu/bioima...are-maples.htm

I seen NO boxelder out there, not a one Somebody please find me a nice boxelder to play with.

I am going to mark a few thousand board feet of nice clear red maple, the biggest straightest ones I can find and if this Striped Maple is good for lumber? I'll mark some of that too. The stripped maple looks to be more promising for figure than the red maple does.. the stripped maple has some character to it, where are the Red Maples are pretty straight. I can't got too wild out there I gotta pay for what I mark

Thanks Dave

look along the creek banks..Box elder (Manitoba Maple) likes fence lines and creek banks.