Sugar maple

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More names for this tree

Anishinaabemowin: Ininaatig

The Dakota and Anishinaabe were among the earliest people to name Minnesota’s plants and animals, as well as to understand them in relation to Minnesota’s climate and seasons. Those original names are still in use, and several are included on the Season Watch website. However, complete translations were not available.

Latin (or scientific name): Acer saccharum

The scientific community has a convention of assigning agreed-upon Latin names to every kind of organism. Using scientific names helps people communicate confidently about the same organism and organize lifeforms based on how closely related they are.

Page contents

About the sugar maple

Visual guide to phenology

More resources

An autumn forest scene, looking down a path with scattered fall leaves. Overhead, a golden yellow canopy of sugar maple leaves contrasts against nearly black, straight tree trunks.
October 6, 2020, St. Louis County, Minnesota
Photo © David, some rights reserved (CC-BY-NC-SA)
iNaturalist observation

About the sugar maple

  • Sugar maple are deciduous trees that can grow to eighty feet in height and live up to 400 years.
  • When the weather begins to warm in early spring, sugar maples can be tapped to release their sap that can be made into syrup. 
  • Around April, these trees produce flowers that are primarily pollinated by wind.
  • Their seeds are often compared to helicopters because as they drift to the ground, flattened wing-like structures make them spin.
  • The sugar maple’s leaves have three to five pointed lobes.
  • In fall, their leaves turn bright red, orange or yellow.
  • Fun fact: It takes about forty gallons of maple sap to produce one gallon of syrup.

Visual guide to phenology

Watch for the appearance of leaves, flowers, and fruits. Take notice of when flowers open and fruits ripen. In addition to these external changes, sugar maples also undergo an important internal change in early spring: trunks transport sugars from roots to the tip of every branch to support new growth. This hidden change becomes visible (and edible) when people tap trees to make maple syrup.

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Note to observers

This page explains general clues to watch for when observing sugar maple phenology. However, this page does not instruct observers on how to identify this plant or collect data in a standardized way.

This photo examines the buds on the tip of a sugar maple branch. The buds are pointed, reddish, and closed.
A white bucket is secured to the trunk of a sugar maple tree. A watery liquid has accumulated in the bucket. The background shows a leafless woodland or forest scene.
At the tip of this sugar maple branch are several buds that are pink and green in color. Some buds are about ten times as large as smaller buds. The background shows a leafless woodland or forest scene.
The tip of this sugar maple branch has open flowers. The flower structures are brilliant lime green and dangle from the branch like tassels. Also on this branch, a leaf bud has broken open and a pale green leaf is beginning to unfold.
Yellow-green flowers hang from a maple branch on hairy stalks. Some leaf buds are breaking and in other places, maple leaves are increasing in size. The new leaves are green and tinged with red.
This scene has dark green maple leaves and yellow-green maple fruits. The fruits hang from the branch on thin, yellow-green stalks. The fruits are bilaterally symmetrical with round nutlets and flat wing-like structures.
This photo contains dark green maple leaves and ripening maple fruits. The fruits have green, round nutlets and wing-like structures that are brown and dry.
A maple fruit has fallen to the ground and rests on a bark-covered root. The fruit has round, green nutlets and brown wing-like structures.
Maple leaves in this photo are brilliantly colored with shades of golden yellow, reds, and oranges. Each individual maple leaf has three main lobes.
This up-close photo shows three closed buds at the tip of of a sugar maple twig. The twig has textures, including raised ridges and small pale bumps.
In the center of this photo is a brown, dry maple leaf, still attached to the twig. The background shows a leafless forest scene with a pale blue sky.

More resources

Sugar maple (Acer saccharum) in the Minnesota Biodiversity Atlas

Sugar maple (Acer saccharum) in Nature's Notebook

"Climate change could shift maple syrup season" - MPR Climate Cast episode, 2023

Sugar maple (Acer saccharum) profile by Minnesota Department of Natural Resources

 

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Co-author: Lynsey Nass, Minnesota Master Naturalist