Outdoor Elements
Barking Up the Right Tree: Norway Maple
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🍁🌳 Have you noticed some maple trees hanging on to their leaves longer than the rest? You might just be barking up the <em>right</em> tree! In this episode of <strong>Outdoor Elements</strong>, Evie takes a closer look at the <strong>Norway Maple</strong> — a non-native, and sometimes invasive, tree that leafs out early and holds onto its leaves late into the seas...
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Outdoor Elements is a local public television program presented by PBS Michiana
Outdoor Elements
Barking Up the Right Tree: Norway Maple
Clip | 4m 30sVideo has Closed Captions
🍁🌳 Have you noticed some maple trees hanging on to their leaves longer than the rest? You might just be barking up the <em>right</em> tree! In this episode of <strong>Outdoor Elements</strong>, Evie takes a closer look at the <strong>Norway Maple</strong> — a non-native, and sometimes invasive, tree that leafs out early and holds onto its leaves late into the seas...
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorshipWell out on a late fall hike, I came across an area in the woods that looked like it had a lot of maples, but many were still hanging on to their leaves.
So I looked a little more closely and realized that these are Norway maples, so this is another in the series I often do called barking up the right tree.
Norway maples are not native.
They were an introduced species into the landscape trade, and they often do overtake a woods.
So in many areas they're considered invasive.
If we take a look at the leaves, at first glance it might look similar to a sugar maple leaf, but it's really broad, much broader than a sugar maple leaf.
And the buds, if we look closely, are kind of a swollen, dark brown.
Whereas sugar maple buds, which are a maple that we often find growing near Norway, maples in the woods, those buds on a sugar maple look like they remind me of like a little upside down ice cream, sugar cones, much more pointed little lighter brown.
So that's one way to tell the two apart.
But the bark is also really diagnostic.
Norway maples have this ridge to brown bark, whereas sugar maples are grayer, more smooth, and often have kind of darker splotches on them here and there.
So the bark is really, really different.
Norway maples do hang on to their leaves much longer in the fall, and they leaf out earlier in the spring than our native maples.
That allows them to outcompete our other native trees in the woods.
And some botanists actually have done some studies and say that the Norway maples release toxins into the soil.
That also helps curtail competition from our native plants in the understory, or even young trees that are trying to grow.
One other interesting thing about maples they all have opposite branching.
So the branches come out opposite each other on larger branches, and the leaves also come out opposite each other.
And that's true for all of our maples in the Great Lakes region.
But the samaras, or the seeds on a Norway maple are broader, wider spread than a sugar maple, for example, which is almost like an upside down you.
So Norway maple Samara wings come out almost exactly opposite each other, or 180 degrees apart.
Another way to tell the two species apart, if you have a crimson king maple in your yard, perhaps with deep Burgundy leaves, that's a cultivar of Norway maple.
And if you snap a Norway maple leaf in the summertime when it's still growing, it will exude milky sap.
Another great identification feature.
Sometimes your maples might get black spots like this.
That's called tar spot.
It's a type of fungus.
It's not harmful to the tree.
It might look a little funky, but it's really not harmful.
And many kinds of maples often get tar spots.
No need to worry.
In any case, if you notice a maple in the woods in late fall that is still holding on to its sleeve, take a look more closely, because maybe it's a Norway maple.
Remember, you can find your own outdoor elements when you visit area parks and natural areas.
We'll see you soon.
You.
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