About

Acer rubrum, the red maple, also known as swamp maple, water maple, or soft maple, is a North American tree species. Many of its features, especially its deciduous leaves, are quite variable in form. At maturity, it often attains a height around 30 metres (100 ft). Its flowers, petioles, twigs, and seeds are all red to varying degrees.

Red maple is one of the most common and widespread deciduous trees of eastern North America. Its distribution ranges from southeastern Manitoba around the Lake of the Woods on the border with Ontario and Minnesota, east to Newfoundland, south to Florida, and southwest to East Texas. Over most of its range, red maple is adaptable to a very wide range of site conditions. It can be found growing in swamps, on poor, dry soils, and almost anywhere in between from sea level to about 900 m (3,000 ft).

How to grow it

Red maple's rapid growth, ease of transplanting, attractive form, and value for wildlife (in the eastern US) has made it one of the most extensively planted trees. In parts of the Pacific Northwest, it is one of the most common introduced trees. Its popularity in cultivation stems from its vigorous habit, its attractive and early red flowers, and most importantly, its flaming red fall foliage. The tree was introduced into the United Kingdom in 1656 and shortly thereafter entered cultivation. There it is frequently found in many parks and yards.

Red maple is a good choice of a tree for urban areas when there is ample room for its root system. Forming an association with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi can help A. rubrum grow along city streets. It is more tolerant of pollution and road salt than sugar maples, although the tree's fall foliage is not as vibrant in this environment. Like several other maples, its low root system can be invasive and it makes a poor choice for plantings near paving.

Where it grows

Acer rubrum is one of the most abundant and most widespread trees in eastern North America. It can be found from the south of Newfoundland, through Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and southern Quebec to the southwest west of Ontario, extreme southeastern Manitoba and northern Minnesota; southward through Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri, eastern Oklahoma, and eastern Texas in its western range; and east to Florida. It has the largest continuous range along the North American Atlantic Coast of any tree that occurs in Florida. In total it ranges 2,600 km (1,600 mi) from north to south. The species is native to all regions of the United States east of the 95th meridian. The tree's range ends where the −40 °C (−40 °F) mean minimum isotherm begins, namely in southeastern Canada. A. rubrum is not present in most of the Prairie Peninsula of the northern Midwest (although it is found in Ohio), the coastal prairie in southern Louisiana and southeastern Texas and the swamp prairie of the Florida Everglades. Red maple's western range stops with the Great Plains where conditions become too dry for it.

Other Acer plants

Field Maple · Kyushu Maple · Cappadocian maple · Vine maple · Père David's maple · Horned maple · Acer tataricum subsp. ginnala · Paperbark maple · Fullmoon Maple · Lobel's Maple · Bigleaf Maple · Montpellier Maple