Fair — lower yield
Norway maple
Acer platanoides
Tappable and surprisingly sweet, but stingy with sap — and an invasive you shouldn't plant.
Bark
Winter buds & twig
Leaf
Whole treeIdentify it in winter
- Opposite branching with stout brown twigs.
- Big, fat, turban-shaped buds that start green and mature to reddish-purple — sugar maple's are slim, sharp and brown.
- Bark is gray-brown with tight, shallow, interlacing ridges — a tidy crosshatch, not curling plates.
- Winged seeds spread almost flat, like a handlebar mustache, and often hang on into winter.
- Usually a yard or street tree with a dense, rounded crown; it holds its leaves later in fall than most native trees.
In summer
- Leaves have 5–7 lobes ending in long, pointed teeth, and are usually wider than they are long.
- Snap a leaf stem: milky white sap means Norway maple. Native maples bleed clear.
- Turns yellow in fall. The dark-purple ‘Crimson King’ is a Norway maple too.
Easily confused with
Sugar maple
Slim, sharp brown buds; bark in plates that curl outward; clear sap from the leaf stem; seeds that hang down in a horseshoe.
London planetree
Maple-shaped leaves on a similar big street tree, but its branching is alternate — every maple is opposite.
Other trees
Keep this season's numbers for next year
LuckySap logs every collection with its sugar reading and your notes, then lines this season up against the last. Free on iPhone.
