Leaf Identification

[Amber Gold]

Last week when I was checking out maple trees I came across one that I'd never seen before. The leaf had three distinct points, was a dark green, and the points drooped. All the leaves I saw were 3 pointed and the edges are fairly smooth. I don't recall what color the fruit was. After looking in my book I thing it's black maple, but I'm not sure. Any ideas?

Thanks

Josh

[Sugarmaker]

Josh,
I believe the black still has five "lobes" so not sure what you might have. Check www.leaf .com?:)

Chris

[mapleman3]

Is it Big??? May be striped maple although they dont get so big as trees

[markcasper]

I have found, yes, the black maple has 5 lobes, but the bottom two points are usually more rounded, not as sharp cut as that of sugar maple. I have also observed that the black maple sometimes gets much bigger leafs and they seem to be a lighter green in color, where as the sugar maple seem to have a deeper, darker, richer, more lush green.

[peacemaker]

amber gold what it sounds to me like you are describing is a box elder ...they start out with a leaf that is just a single lobe but as the leaves mature they look like a maple leaf but only 3 lobes
whats the bark look like

[PATheron]

Have any of you guys ever tapped a boxelder? Theron

[maple flats]

Yes, years ago when we just made a little for home use and to teach the kids we tapped a few Box Elder. I believe the syrup was close to but not as good as what we now get from sugar maples. I never kept track of ratios but the sugar % was lower than sugars or reds. We always got dark because we just simmered it on the woodstove and kept adding sap as we had more to add. We would start with 2 and sometimes 3 pots cooking and after adding a few times to each we would condense it to 1 pot to finish and start new in the other pots.

[Russell Lampron]

Some visitors to my sugar house were telling me about how they made syrup from box elders. They said the same thing about the flavor. It was syrup but it wasn't nearly as good as Maple Syrup.

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

Ever tapped a Pine Tree or Telephone pole?

[peacemaker]

lol there is a funny u tube clip of a fella in maine tapping a telephone poll for eletricity very funny

[Valley View Sugarhouse]

Come on guys don't make fun of tapping telephone poles, I do mine every year and the great thing is, you don't have to drill a new hole every year like a maple.. They seem to heal over very slow..... lol

[Amber Gold]

I was thinking about it. I live on Route 9 in Barrington and there's a couple of poles on my property. That'd be pretty funny and would get some laughs. It might even be good for business.

There's a guy on the fire dept. with me, who when I told him I was going to start a sugaring operation next year, he seriously thought that you add sugar to the syrup and he's mid-40's. I couldn't believe it.

It may be a box elder. Next time I'm over there I'll get some pics of the bark and leaf and post them.

[Valley View Sugarhouse]

I have a bucket with Got Sap painted on it, and I put it up every year.... I have a friend that used to sugar, and he had one painted open/closed he used for his sign at the sugarhouse...

[peacemaker]

amber its easy to tell look for some young leaves on it they wont look the same as the older ones ... and if you cut it down you will have a thousand shoots come of it

[maple flats]

The box elder is also called an ash leaf maple, the leaves are very sililar to ash leaves. I do not think I have ever seen a box elder of much size with a straight trunk, they grow very fast and the trunk shape looks similar to black willow, leans, not real tall and spreads all over.
True story, years ago I was buying some plumbing supplies from a wholesaler and I went back into their warehouse with the employee to help carry the order out. Near an overhead door, setting on end on the concrete floor was a chunk of box elder that had several small branches growing from it with green leaves and good shoot length. I commented how it looked like it was hard to kill. The employee said the bloch had been setting there for over a year and it had no such growth when put there. This block was sucking enough moisture up thru the concrete to actually support a large number of leaves that looked to be in good health. This shows how hard it is to kill box elder.

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

post edited

[peacemaker]

willow and boxelder both will re sprout i cut down a boxelder down three years ago and had to re cut it down this year .. and once made a bean fence out of willow the silly thing started to grow

[VA maple guy]

I taped some boxelders a few years ago. the syrup was good but it had a
little bit of bitterness to it.