The Striped Maple or Moosewood (Acer pensylvanicum) is a small tree of northern forests in eastern North America from southern Ontario east to New Brunswick and south to eastern Illinois and New Jersey, and also at high elevations in the Appalachian Mountains much farther south than in the rest of is range, to northern Georgia.

It is an attractive small tree growing to 5-10 m tall, with a trunk up to 20 cm diameter. The young bark is striped with green and white, and when a little older, brown. The leaves are broad and soft, 8-15 cm long and 6-12 cm broad, with three shallow forward-pointing lobes. The fruit is a samara.

The spelling pensylvanicum is the one originally used by Linnaeus.

Ecology

Moosewood is an understory tree of cool, moist forests. It prefers slopes. It is among the most shade-tolerant of deciduous trees. It can germinate and persist for years as a small understory shrub, growing rapidly to its full height when a gap opens up. It does not ever become a canopy tree, however, and once the gap above it is closed, it responds by flowering profusely, and to some degree by vegetative reproduction.

Cultivation and uses

Striped Maple is sometimes grown as an ornamental tree for its decorative bark, though it is difficult to transplant.

The wood is soft and considered undesireable among maples. Although ecologically there is no reason to consider it a pest, foresters sometimes consider the striped maple to be a pest tree, even to the point of applying herbicides to destroy it. Its shade tolerance makes it difficult to control, as it is often present in great numbers in the understory.

External links

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• NRCS: USDA Plants Profile amd map: Acer pennsylvanicum
• Acer pensylvanicum images at bioimages.vanderbilt.edu

References

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• Hibbs, D. E. & Fischer, B. C. (1979). Sexual and Vegetative Reproduction of Striped Maple (Acer pensylvanicum L.). Bull. Torrey Bot. Club 106 (3): 222-227.
• Hibbs, D. E., Wilson, B. F., & Fischer, B. C. (1980). Habitat Requirements and Growth of Striped Maple (Acer Pensylvanicum L.). Ecology 61 (3): 490-496

Sapindales | Trees of Northeastern United States | Trees of Southeastern Canada | Trees of Appalachia U.S.

Stribet Løn | Streifen-Ahorn | Érable de Pennsylvanie | Klon pensylwański