Acer floridanum facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Acer floridanum |
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| Young A. floridanum, about 4 m tall, showing color change. | |
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Acer
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floridanum
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The Acer floridanum, often called the Florida maple, is a tree found in the southeastern United States. You might also hear it called the southern sugar maple or hammock maple. It grows in moist woodlands, especially where the soil has calcium carbonate (like limestone). Its natural home stretches from southeastern Virginia down to central Florida, and west to Oklahoma and Texas. It is also common in southern Illinois and Missouri.
Contents
What Does the Florida Maple Look Like?
The Florida maple is a medium to large deciduous tree. This means it loses its leaves every fall. It usually grows about 15 to 25 meters (about 50 to 80 feet) tall. Its top part, called the crown, is shaped like an oval.
Bark, Twigs, and Buds
The tree's bark is light gray. It has thick, bumpy ridges that curl. As the tree gets older, the bark might start to look like it has plates. The twigs are thin, reddish-brown, and a bit shiny. The buds at the end of the twigs are pointed, brown, and fuzzy.
Leaves and Flowers
The leaves grow opposite each other on the branch. They are simple, meaning they are one piece, and have lobes like fingers on a hand. They are usually 3 to 9.5 centimeters long and 3.5 to 11 centimeters wide. They have three or five rounded lobes and a stem (called a petiole) that is 2 to 8 centimeters long. The leaves are green on top and lighter and fuzzy underneath. In the fall, they turn beautiful shades of orange and yellow.
The tree's flowers are small and yellow-green. They grow in clusters called corymbs. These flowers appear in early spring, often before or at the same time as the leaves. This is about two weeks earlier than the flowers of the Sugar maple. Florida maples usually have separate male and female trees, but sometimes one tree can have both male and female flowers.
Fruit
The fruit of the Florida maple is a paired samara. This means it's a seed with two wings, which helps it spin and fly away from the tree when it falls. Each samara is about 1.5 to 3 centimeters long.
How to Tell It Apart from Other Maples
The Florida maple can look a lot like the Sugar maple (Acer saccharum) and Acer leucoderme. You can usually tell it apart from the Sugar maple because its leaves are smaller and have shorter, pointier lobes. Its samaras are also smaller, and its bark is often whiter. Sometimes, the Florida maple and Sugar maple can even mix their genes, especially in places like east Texas and from Maryland down to northern Florida.
To tell it apart from A. leucoderme, look at the underside of the leaves. Florida maple leaves have white hairs underneath, while A. leucoderme leaves have yellow hairs.
Why Is Its Name So Tricky?
For over 100 years, scientists have debated the exact name of the Florida maple. In 1860, a scientist named Alvan Wentworth Chapman first noticed it was different. He thought it was a type of Sugar maple. Later, in 1886, Ferdinand Albin Pax decided it was different enough to be its own species, calling it A. floridanum.
In 1952, another scientist, Yves Desmarais, suggested it was a subspecies of the Sugar maple. This means it's a special kind of Sugar maple, but not a completely separate species. Many people today agree with this idea.
There was also confusion with the name Acer barbatum. In 1803, André Michaux gave this name to a maple he found. For a long time, no one was sure if his samples were the Sugar maple or the Florida maple. After much study, it was finally confirmed that Michaux's samples were actually the Sugar maple. So, the name A. barbatum is now considered another name for the Sugar maple, not the Florida maple.
Where Does the Florida Maple Grow and Live?
The Florida maple grows in different parts of the Piedmont and Atlantic Coastal Plain. You can find it from southeastern Virginia southwest through North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. It also grows in the Florida Panhandle, and west across Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and into eastern Texas. It goes north through Arkansas and into eastern Oklahoma. You can also find it in a few separate spots along the Gulf Coast of Florida and in parts of Illinois, Missouri, Tennessee, and Kentucky.
Its Favorite Home
This tree likes places that get a good amount of rain, usually between 112 to 163 centimeters (about 44 to 64 inches) per year. Even in the driest months, it needs at least 50 millimeters (about 2 inches) of rain.
In January, the temperature where it grows usually ranges from 11 to 18 degrees Celsius (52 to 64 degrees Fahrenheit) during the day, and -2 to 7 degrees Celsius (28 to 45 degrees Fahrenheit) at night. In July, the daytime temperatures are usually 29 to 33 degrees Celsius (84 to 91 degrees Fahrenheit), and nighttime temperatures are 21 to 24 degrees Celsius (70 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit).
The Florida maple prefers moist, but well-drained, rich soils. It grows best in soils that contain calcareous material, like limestone or marl. It also thrives in the thick forests of Florida called hammocks, which is why it's sometimes called the hammock maple. It often grows under taller trees.
How People Use the Florida Maple
The Florida maple is not super popular for planting, but people in the Southern United States sometimes use it as a shade tree. This is because it has a nice round shape and can handle the heat better than its cousin, the Sugar maple.
Wildlife and Wood
Many birds and especially squirrels use the Florida maple as a place to build their nests. They also eat its seeds.
Even though the Florida maple isn't a major tree for cutting wood, its wood is sometimes used with other trees for things like pulpwood (for paper), sawtimber, or wood veneer (thin slices of wood). It's considered a hard maple. If the tree is good quality, its wood can be used for furniture, flooring, and paneling. However, because it's not very common and often doesn't grow very large, it's mostly used for general lumber.
Maple Syrup
The Florida maple can also be a source of maple syrup. However, because it's smaller and rarer than the Sugar maple, it's not used as much for making syrup. The Sugar maple is much more popular for this purpose.
