Black maple is also sometimes known as black sugar maple, hard maple, or rock maple, and is closely related to sugar maple (Acer saccharum). The tree is very similar to sugar maple in appearance, its native range and the qualities of its wood. The lumber from black maple is mixed with sugar maple and sold as hard maple. The tree is also tapped to produce maple sap for syrup production.

· Species Description: Silvics of North American Hardwoods

· Virginia Tech Dendrology Sheet for Black Maple

Description:
Black maple is very similar in appearance to sugar maple. The tree reaches heights of over 80 feet and diameters of 2 to 3 feet. When grown without competion, it forms a broad, rounded symmetrical crown. The bark of older trees is thick and deeply furrowed, with the color becoming nearly black at times.

Leaves are arranged oppositely along the twigs, and are 5 to 7 inches across, and normally are wider than long. The leaves typically have five lobes, but the two outermost lobes are often no more than small bumps. The other lobes are pointed, but the leaf sinuses are broad and shallow. Leaves are usually the best way to distinguish black from sugar maple.

Flowering normally occurs in May. Small yellow flowers appear in slender, hairy stalks.

Distribution:
Black maple's natural range extends from New England, New York & southern Quebec, through southern Ontario, central Michigan and northern Wisconsin into southern Minnesota; south to northeast Kansas and Missouri; and east through Tennessee, to North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.

Habitat:
Black maple's range overlaps that of sugar maple on the eastern edge of its range, but becomes more common moving from east to west. The species is better adapted to the warmer and dryer climate of the mid-west and prairie states than sugar maple. Black maple is commonly found as a dominant forest tree in forests containing American beech, yellow-poplar, basswood, sugar maple and red and white oak.

Uses: The wood of black maple is virtually indistinguishable from that of sugar maple (hard, fine grained, and light colored lumber), and as a result the two species are commonly used to produce the same products.
It is commonly used for furniture, cabinets, paneling, hardwood flooring and veneer. The species is also tapped to produce maple syrup, and comparisons of the sugar content of the sap of black and sugar maple have shown no significant differences.

The Handbook of Vermont Trees, Burns & Otis, Bulletin 194, VT Agricultural Experiment Station, University of Vermont, 1916.