Red Maple

Description

Botanical Name:  Acer rubrum var. rubrum

Common Name:  Red Maple

Description:  Red Maple is a beautiful tree native to Florida. It’s a medium sized, fast-growing tree that reaches 40-60′ tall x 30-40′ wide. This is deciduous, with its leaves turning a brilliant shades of red/orange/yellow before dropping. The red flowers appear in dense clusters in early spring before the leaves, the buds turning a deep red sometimes before they open. A double samara ripens in late spring or early summer, turning red to brownish-red. Each half of the samara measures between 0.5″ to 1″ long. Its native habitat is moist, open woodlands, and swamps. Red maples makes a wonderful shade tree. Likes sun to part sun and can grow in that wet/damp area of your garden but it also adapts just fine to regular garden environments. Red maples can be expected to live for 80 years or more. This needs acidic soil to grow to its full glory. It struggles in alkaline soils.

Is an excellent wildlife tree. Is larval host for imperial moth (Eacles imperialis) , cecropia silkmoth (Hyalophora cecropia), polyphemus moth(Antheraea polyphemus) and rosy maple moth (Dryocampa rubicunda); birds and squirrels eat the seeds; leaves are eaten by the deer. It produces a lot of pollen for over-wintered bee colonies that are desperate for fresh protein. Is one of our earliest blooming native trees and can be an important food source for a variety of pollinators and wildlife.

Don’t plant this too close to your house or driveway because this tree has a shallow, flattened root system that may buckle nearby sidewalks or driveways. Planted at least 20′ away from houses, etc., it should be fine.

Not salt tolerant of inundation by salty or brackish water. Low/no tolerance of salty wind or direct salt spray.

This plant in 3-gallon containers is 2-4′ tall.

This plant in 7-gallon containers is 4-6′ tall.

This plant in 15-gallon containers is 8-9′ tall.

Plant Loret: Genus name is the Latin name for a maple tree.  Specific epithet of rubrum meaning red is everywhere in evidence: red flowers in dense clusters in late March to early April (before the leaves appear), red fruit (initially reddish, two-winged samara), reddish stems and twigs, red buds, and, in the fall, excellent orange-red foliage color.

Florida Hardiness Zones 8 – 10