Common Name: Sugar Maple
Scientific Name: Acer saccharinum
Location: Red Barn Park
Identifying Features
Several sugar maples line this walkway to the stadium entrance. Sugar maples are the source of maple syrup, although weather conditions in Missouri are not optimal for syrup production. The leaves differ from silver maple in that the valleys (sinuses) between the pointy lobes are shallow and u-shaped versus deep and v-shaped. Sugar maples fruit in the fall, unlike silver and red maples which produce their fruits in the spring.
Needs Distribution/Geography
The Tree Maple is native to the hardwood forests of eastern Canada and eastern United States.
Click here to see a map of where the Sugar Maple can be found.
Uses
The wood of a Sugar Maple is valued for being hard, heavy and strong; common uses include furniture, flooring, and veneer as well as tool handles, musical instruments, and baseball bats. Sugar maple constitutes about 6% of the hardwood saw timber value in the US, with rising production of saw timber and firewood.
History
Perhaps the most well-known use of Sugar Maples is maple sugaring. However, this process was not new to Massachusetts when the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620. The Native Americans had been making sugar from the sweet sap of the maple tree for many years. From the journals of early explorers we know that the Native Americans had a process for making maple sugar as early as 1609.
Fun Fact
Sugar Maples can live for 300 years.