Originally Posted by
Andy VT
My suburban neighborhood is loaded with all sorts of maples including many red maples. Every red maple I've identified has what I think of as the quintessential 3-lobed toothy red maple leaf. But one tree that had red buds this spring at the same time as the other red maples and seems to have red maple bark has leaves -- all the leaves -- that are quintessential sugar maple shape... full Canadian flag leaves. The owner of the tree swears it is sugar maple based on the leaf shape. But I can't get past the red buds, timing of the buds, and the bark.
Andy
Could it be a Black Maple?
Black Maples and Sugar Maples are known to be very difficult to compare by leaf. Not sure about the buds/flowers/blossoms. Bark on Black and Sugar should also be very similar.
Black Maples are almost always assumed to be or mistaken as sugar maples, but they are a different tree as defined by science, so some things about them are clearly different.
I do not think either are known to hybridize with any other tree. Not sure if black will hybridize with sugars but they may.
If you think it's easy to make good money in maple syrup .... then your obviously good at stealing somebody's Maple Syrup.
Favorite Tree: Sugar Maple
Most Hated Animal: Sap Sucker
Most Loved Animal: Devon Rex Cat
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40 Sugar Maple Taps ... 23 in CT and 17 in NY .... 29 on gravity tubing and 11 on 5G buckets ... 2019 Totals 508 gallons of sap, 7 boils, 11.4 gallons of syrup.
1 Girlfriend that gives away all my syrup to her friends.