The Wild Garden: Hansen's Northwest Native Plant Database

Northwest Native Maples

Kingdom Plantae – Plants

Subkingdom Tracheobionta – Vascular plants

Superdivision Spermatophyta – Seed plants

Division Magnoliophyta – Flowering plants

Class Magnoliopsida – Dicotyledons

Subclass Rosidae

Order Sapindales

Family Aceraceae – Maple family

Genus Acer L. – maple

Acer circinatum (Vine Maple)

Acer glabrum (Douglas Maple)

Acer grandidentatum (Bigtooth Maple, Rocky Mountain Sugar Maple)

Acer macrophyllum (Big-Leaf Maple)

From Homepage March 4, 2005

Old favorites northwest native maples, Vine Maple (Acer circinatum) and Big Leaf Maple (Acer macrophyllum) are often available in bare root form, ready for planting in your yard.

These two are quite different and both are beauties, sure to please year round but especially glamorous in their fall colors. The flaming scarlet and rich golden hues brighten crisp autumn day

Of course, the summer green is just as lovely. Vine Maple will grow even in shade! They need watering the first year as do almost every young plant. Once established they'll tolerate summer drought handily. They will not thrive in intense heat however. Perfect for understory planting.

The "Big Mack," Acer macrophyllum, give a generous show of creamy yellow flowers in spring, lovely against those big 1 foot leaves. This tree hosts a wide variety of moss and lichen and will often sport Licorice Ferns right on their bark.

Plant Salal or Sword Fern or Oregon Grape 'neath the Acer macrophyllum's wide branches. Be sure to leave room for a hammock or maybe an old fashioned glider. Plan on picnics in the shade of your tree in just a few years.

Maples are trees of great beauty in different ways for different seasons. In winter their skeletons are revealed, showing comforting patterns against the winter skies. Springtime starts the juices pumping, sprouts tip each branch, the leaves awaken and unfurl. Summer maples are at last fully foliaged, and the flowers draw pollinators of bird and bee. It is later in the year that maples give their astounding show of fall color--the leaves of crimson and gold brighten each tree and then float to the ground making a crazy quilt of natural mulch. And then, worn from the annual journey each tree must travel, they settle down to rest before the spring awakening comes again.

"Maples comprise one of the largest, most diverse, and most important groups of broadleaved trees in the world. There are about 125 species of maples in the world, with most living in China and the Far East. Maples are noted for their oppositely arranged and palmately lobed leaves, and their propellor-like seeds, called samaras."

From Oregon State University's Common Trees of the Pacific Northwest http://oregonstate.edu/trees/broadleaf_genera/maple.htm

Valerie Rose has written a very nice paper, Trees for Fall Foliage, October 8, 2010. She explores the visual impact maples give the landscape. She begins:

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower. ~Albert Camus

See the article at http://skagit.wsu.edu/mg/2010AA/100810.pdf

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