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How to Identify a Hard Maple Tree
How to Identify a Hard Maple Tree. The black maple (Acer nigrum) has the nicknames hard maple and rock maple in reference to the hardness of its wood. Hard maple is a close relative of the sugar maple (Acer saccharum), with hard maple often treated as a subspecies of sugar maple, according to the "National Audubon Society Field Guide to Trees:...
The black maple (Acer nigrum) has the nicknames hard maple and rock maple in reference to the hardness of its wood. Hard maple is a close relative of the sugar maple (Acer saccharum), with hard maple often treated as a subspecies of sugar maple, according to the "National Audubon Society Field Guide to Trees: Eastern Region." Hard maple's range extends from western New England through the Midwest and Great Lakes, with its southern distribution ending in Tennessee. Identify hard maple from its characteristics, including its bark.
Look for a large tree possessing a round, thick crown of branches. Hard maples grow to heights between 60 and 80 feet, with trunk diameters in the 2- to 3-foot range. Some occasionally top out at more than 100 feet high. Hard maples have a spread of between 40 and 60 feet.
Inspect the leaves on a hard maple, studying features such as the shape, texture and size. Hard maple has simple leaves, with most having three lobes, but some have five lobes. The lobes are pointy and the gaps between each lobe have a U shape. The leaves of hard maple measure up to 6 inches long. They sometimes have a wilted look to their edges. From three to five main veins extend upward from the base of the leaf, and the undersides are usually hairy.
Watch for the color change of the hard maple in autumn. The foliage, which is a dull yellow-green shade on the underside of the leaf but more greenish on the top surface, changes to colors including yellow, red and orange in the fall, notes the Missouri Botanical Garden.
Examine the bark of the hard maple, a feature that separates it from the sugar maple. On the mature specimen, the bark is dark gray, often to the point that it looks almost black. The bark has furrows and ridges in it.
Observe the flowers and resulting seeds on a hard maple. The flowers emerge along with the foliage in early spring, usually in April. They grow in clusters from a 2- to 3-inch-long hairy stem. Flowers are a yellow-green color. By fall, the flowers turn into the seeds of the maple, known as samaras. The seeds attach in pairs side by side so that they look like wings. The seeds are as long as an inch and eventually turn brown before falling off the tree.
