Red Maple
(Acer rubrum)

 Tree Description

    The Red Maple is medium-sized tree. In forest, trunk usually clear for some distance, in the open the trunk is shorter and the crown rounded.

Leaf Description
 
      The leaf is opposite, 3 to 5 palmate lobes with serrate margins, sinuses relatively shallow (but variable), 2 to 4 inches long; light green above, whitened and sometimes glaucous or hairy beneath.
 

Bark Description
       

  The bark on young trees, smooth and light gray, with age becomes darker and breaks up into long scaly plates.

Twig and Bud Description

                
    The twig is reddish and lustrous. Buds are usually green or reddish (fall and winter) with several scales usually present.

Fruit Descritption

   The fruit consists in clusters of 1/2 to 3/4 inch long fruit with slightly divergent wings, appears May to June, on long slender stems. Light brown and often reddish . 

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Resources:

• http://www.cnr.vt.edu/dendro/dendrology/main.htm
• Symonds, George W. D. The Tree Identification Book. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1958.
• Trees and Nonflowering Plants. The Reader's Digest Association, Inc.,1998