Acer macrophyllum
Big Leaf Maple

Family: Aceraceae (Maple family)

© 2002, Thayne Tuason. Photo taken at Anderson Canyon, dry hillside near stream (10 to 20 meters away)

© 2010, Thayne Tuason. Grove of bigleaf maple at Leavenworth Ski Hill in early spring. This area remains fairly shaded and moist. Even during winter the trees can be readily identified by looking at the bark on the trunk. The bark of the tree is segmented- much like bamboo- with a darker rings on the trunk marking each whorl of branches produced.

Flowers:

petals present and greenish, 10 to 30 in a raceme or panicle

Seeds:

bristly hairy, wings spreading less than 90 degrees

Leaves:

simple; 10 to 20 cm broad; palmately lobed, lobes three to five in number and deep, irregularly toothed

Plant:

tree, 5 to 30 meters tall. Traditionally the sap was boiled into a maple syrup, and raw shoots and sprouted boiled seeds were eaten by the Thompson. The large leaves were used to line containers, and between layers of food in pit cooking and in fish caches.

Habitat:

common by streambanks and in canyons

Distribution of species:

Alaska to California to west central Idaho, mostly west of the Cascades, usually found growing lower than 1,500 meters in elevation

Distribution of genus:

plus or minus 118 species, Northern hemisphere