How to Identify Soft Maple Trees

Silver maple tree leaves have double-toothed edges.

Silver maple, also known as soft maple, is the longest-lived variety of maple tree in urban settings, according to the Waterford Village National Historic Landmark website. Its natural habitat extends from the northeastern United States west to Michigan and south to Alabama and Georgia. Soft maples are most common on moist land and along stream banks. They grow to heights of 100 feet or more and live as long as 130 years. Silver maple trees are also known as river maple, silver-leaf maple, swamp maple, water maple and white maple. There are several ways to identify the soft maple tree.

Instructions

1. Identify the tree's bark characteristics. The bark of young soft maple is gray-brown and smooth. Mature bark has irregular furrows with thin, gray scaly plates on a trunk that is 3 feet in diameter. The inner wood is soft and even-textured and decays rapidly upon exposure.

2. Soft maple leaves are 3 inches to 6 inches long, opposite and palmately five-lobed. The edges are irregularly double-toothed. The leaf surface is light green above and white to silver below. Autumn leaf color is green to yellow-brown.

3. Flowering occurs in February to March, and soft maple may be the first native tree to come into bloom. Flowers and fruit appear before leaves in greenish-yellow or reddish-yellow clusters. The winged seeds, or keys, are 1 inch to 2 inches long when they mature in May and June. Trees begin producing winged seed-keys at 11 years of age.

Tips & Warnings

• Their rapid growth makes soft maples a good choice for a landscape shade tree.

• The early swelling and bud-burst of soft maples provide squirrels with food during the critical late-winter, early-spring period when food is scarce.

• The most important stem disease on soft maple trees is Verticillium wilt (Verticillium albo-atrum), which causes sudden death of the tree. Other potential problems include the target canker, mistletoe and crown gall.

• Soft maple is susceptible to air pollution and ice damage because of its soft wood characteristics.

References

• Waterford Village National Historic Landmark: Maple Trees
• U.S. Forest Service: Silver Maple

Resources

• University of Rhode Island Extension: Maple Tree Decline