Red Maple Tree Information

Images of Red Maple:


Red Maple grows in the following 36 states and provinces:

Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Manitoba, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Nova Scotia, Ohio, Oklahoma, Ontario, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin

Information about Red Maple:


More information about Red Maple may be found here.

The Acer Rubrum is commonly known as the Red Maple as well as Scarlet Maple.

Red maple is a member of the maple family Aceraceae . It exhibits great morphological variation and has been included in a highly variable complex of related taxa . The currently accepted scientific name of red maple is Acer rubrum L. . Many varieties and forms have been identified, but most are no longer recognized. The following varieties are commonly recognized: Acer rubrum var. drummondii (Hook. & Arn. ex Nutt.) Sarg. Acer rubrum var. trilobum Torr. & Gray ex K. Koch Several forms, differentiated on the basis of various morphological characteristics, are commonly delineated : Acer rubrum f. tomentosum (Tausch) Siebert & Voss Acer rubrum f. rubrum Acer rubrum f. pallidum Red maple hybridizes with silver maple (A. saccharinum) under natural conditions . A hybrid product of this cross has been identified: Acer X freemanii E. Murray .

Red maple is one of the most widely distributed trees in eastern North America .  Its range extends from Newfoundland and Nova Scotia west to southern Ontario, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Illinois; south through Missouri, eastern Oklahoma, and southern Texas; and east to southern Florida .  It is conspicuously absent from the bottomland forests of the Corn Belt in the Prairie Peninsula of the Midwest, the coastal prairies of southern Louisiana and southeastern Texas, and the swamp prairie of the Florida everglades .  It is cultivated in Hawaii .

Red maple occurs as a dominant or codominant in several eastern deciduous forests and deciduous swamp communities with black ash (Fraxinus nigra), yellow birch (Betula alleghaniensis), northern red oak (Quercus rubra), black oak ( Q. velutinus), aspen (Populus tremuloides), and elm (Ulmus spp.).  In mesic upland communities of the Southeast, it grows as an overstory dominant with sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua) and water oak (Quercus palustris).  Red maple has been included as an indicator or dominant in the following community type (cts) and plant association (pas) classifications: Location        Classification          Authority AL              forest cts              Golden 1979 MA              forest pas              Spurr 1956 se MI           deciduous swamp cts     Barnes 1976        s MI            forest cts              Hammitt & Barnes 1989 NY              forest cts              Glitzenstein & others 1990 s ON            general veg. cts        Smith & others 1975

Some of the information provided here is attributed to:Tirmenstein, D. A. 1991. Acer rubrum. In: Fire Effects Information System, [Online]. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fire Sciences Laboratory (Producer). , available at the USDA Fire Effects Information System (FEIS) website