The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Acer floridanum
Also called Southern sugar maple, Hammock maple
Florida maple (Acer floridanum) is a medium to large deciduous tree of the southeastern US, valued as a shade tree for its round crown and heat tolerance. It is a species, not a genus, and suits warm, humid climates.
Acer floridanum (syn. Acer saccharum subsp. floridanum (Chapm.) Desmarais, Acer barbatum auct. non Michx.), commonly known as the Florida maple and occasionally as the southern sugar maple or hammock maple, is a tree that occurs in mesic and usually calcareous woodlands of the Atlantic and Gulf coastal plain in the United States, from southeastern Virginia in the north, south to central Florida, and west to Oklahoma and Texas and also common in south Illinois and Missouri
While not an overwhelmingly popular tree in cultivation, it is sometimes employed in the Southern United States as a shade tree due to its round crown and its greater resistance to heat than that of its more showy relative the sugar maple. Several species of birds and especially squirrels make use of the tree as a nesting site and also consume its seeds as a food source.
Despite the fact that of itself Florida maple is not employed as a commercial timber species, it is used with associated commercial species when the products are pulpwood, sawtimber, or wood veneer stock. It is considered a hard maple and as high quality individuals are suitable for producing furniture, flooring, paneling, and shoe lasts. However, its relative scarcity, small size, and fairly poor shape generally confine its use to only factory and box lumber, and even this is only an occasional occurrence. It has, however, been experiencing growing popularity as an ornamental or shade tree, especially in the Southern United States due to its high heat resistance.
The distribution is discontinuous in the Piedmont and Atlantic Coastal Plain from southeastern Virginia southwest across North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, as well as into the Florida Panhandle. The range goes farther west across Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, into eastern Texas, and north through Arkansas and into eastern Oklahoma. The species also occurs in several isolated locations roughly halfway down the Gulf Coast of the Florida peninsula, and also in at least one location in central Oklahoma. The species is also found in isolated locations of Illinois, Missouri, Tennessee and Kentucky.
Tapering Leaf Maple · Acer alaskense · Himalayan Maple · Acer amamiense · Broad Maple · Deep-veined Maple · Acer ashwilli · Bearded maple · Jalisco Maple · Acer brevipes · Acer browni · Trident maple
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Acer floridanum by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
