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Scientific name: Anthophyta: Dicotyledonae: Sapindales: Aceraceae:
Common Name: Information Sheet, Ash-leaved Maple

Country: USA
State/District: DC
County: not applicable
Date (D-M-Y): 5 - 2001

Photographer: E. M. Barrows

Identifier: E. M. Barrows
Collector: not applicable
Location: Rock Creek Park
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Keywords: A FEtr Glover-Archbold Park green flower information sheet pink flower red flower ROCR tree
Additional Information:



Information Sheet, Ash-leaved Maple

Acer negundo Linnaeus, , Boxelder, Érable à Giguère
[Latin Acer, maple; negundo , aboriginal name for this tree] ( Petrides 1988, plate 9; Kricher & Morrison 1998, 145)

Please see "Information Sheet, Maples."

Ash-leaved Maple is native to FL through TX north through western New England, NY, southern Ontario, and southeastern MN.   Ash-leaved Maple is often cultivated and naturalized outside of its range.

General roles in forests.   Ash-leaved Maple s are autotrophs that generally live in forests (especially flood-plain forests), forest edges, successional areas, and yards.   Many kinds of organisms consume dead and living AN fruits, leaves, roots, and stems.

Specific roles in forests.   Ash-leaved Maple can be a common successional tree, and common in some forests, from wet through dry ones.   Ash-leaved Maple is a common tree in the flood-plain forests along the Potomac River.   Ash-leaved Maple flowers produce nectar and aphids that feed on this species produce honeydew which is consumed by False Honey Ants, Honey Bees, other bees, and other animals (Pellett 1978).   Some bird and mammal species commonly consume Ash-leaved Maple fruits (= samaras), especially during the cold season.   A kind of mite lives in galls that it causes on Ash-leaved Maple foliage, and this mite consumes the foliage.

Identification by leaves: please see "Information Sheet, Maples."

Human uses.   Ash-leaved Maples are easy to grow, survive on moist soils, resist frost and drought, but have weak branches that are liable to break in storms.   I have seen significant damage to a roof and side of a house due to a fallen Ash-leaved Maple after a 1996 storm in Bethesda, MD.   We plant Ash-leaved Maples in shelterbelts and as street and yard trees, especially in Midwest prairie towns.   A gardener in Port Rowan, Ontario, used Ash-leaved Maple as a hedge in 1996.   Kansans formerly frequently planted Ash-leaved Maples around their farmsteads (Stephens 1969, 179).   This Maple is easily transplanted.   There are several horticultural varieties.   One common variety regularly has only 3 leaflets with hairy leaf stalks and twigs (Farrar 1995).   Plains Indians made sugar and syrup from Ash-leaved Maple sap., and people still make these products.   The sugar is supposedly white and of very good quality (Grimm 1957, 291).   We use Ash-leaved Maple's wood for boxes (hence the name Boxelder), cheap furniture, crates, distillation products, pulpwood, and wooden ware.

E.M.B. (2002)








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