I stood out in the Singleton Forest engulfed by nature. This particular sugar maple was old. The tree had already lost some very large limbs and there was a decaying core.
The Latin name for the sugar maple tree is Acer saccharum. This tree is sometimes referred to as the sweet maple, curly maple, or rock maple. Sugar maple is not as tolerant of heat as the red maple. While red maple will probably continue to thrive in our warming climate, the sugar maple will have a much harder time.
Sugar and red maples are quite fast growing and can easily reach five meters in height (15-18 feet) in less than a decade. However, unlike red maples, which start producing seed after just four or five years, the sugar maple doesn't start producing seeds for about thirty years. The leaves of the sugar maple are unlike the red maple which are strongly serrated or indented. Sugar maple leaves do have points on the ends of each lobe. Although the leaf on the Canadian flag is a generic stylized maple, it is very close to the shape of the sugar maple.
Sugar maples grow to be about the same size as or just slightly larger than red maples. A mature tree can often grow to thirty or even thirty-five meters in height (100-115 feet), and can be a meter (three feet) in diameter near the base of the tree. Sugar maples generally live to be quite a bit older than red maples. It is common for a sugar maple to live 200 years or more. This particular Singleton sugar maple was probably 300 years old meaning that it was a sapling around 1700. The trees and the forests need to be protected.
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