Photo: Douglas Goldman, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Florida Maple

Acer floridanum

Also called southern sugar maple, hammock maple, Acer barbatum, Acer saccharum subsp. floridanum.

A southern cousin of sugar maple, at home in heat and humidity, with yellow to orange fall color and a rounded crown for shade.

Fall colorDrought tolerantTolerates shadeStreet treeWildlife value

Type: Medium tree
Mature height: 20–60 ft
USDA zones: 5–9
Growth rate: Medium
Sun: Full, Part, Shade
Soil moisture: Dry, Average
Grows wild in: Floodplain forests, stream banks, rich moist slopes and the forest understory
Native range: 15 states, north to Illinois, south to Florida and west to Texas
List all 15
Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia
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Florida maple is the southern sugar maple, a close relative of the northern tree, and it is better suited to long, hot summers. It is easily confused with chalk maple, the maple it most resembles. Florida maple grows into a single-trunked shade tree, and the undersides of its leaves are pale and whitish. Chalk maple stays smaller, often grows on several trunks, and has yellow-green leaf undersides. It is a limited source of maple syrup. Choose it for a lawn or a street in storm country, since its limbs resist wind and ice.

Size, growth and what to expect

Florida maple grows at a medium pace, about a foot and a half a year in our growth estimator. It reaches 20 to 60 feet with a rounded crown 25 to 40 feet across, and it is most often seen at 20 to 30 feet.

Small yellow-green flowers hang from long stalks in late March and April, about two weeks before sugar maple's. The paired samaras, about three quarters of an inch long, hang on the tree from June to October. Birds and small mammals eat the seeds. Fall color runs yellow and orange, less vivid than a northern sugar maple's. Some dead leaves hang on in the crown into winter.

It grows wild from southeastern Virginia to the Florida Panhandle and west to eastern Texas and Oklahoma. Its home is moist, fertile ground on stream terraces, in coves and on bluffs, often over limestone. There it is mostly an understory tree.

How to grow Florida Maple

Florida maple grows in full sun or part shade and tolerates heavy shade. Give it a moist, fertile soil that drains well, acid to neutral. It takes drought once established, but it does not tolerate salt. Its roots run shallow and reach the surface early, so set it in a bed where no mower will scar them. Plant it 20 feet from a wall and more than 50 feet from overhead wires, and set trees 30 feet apart.

Saplings ship bare-root or potted. Plant them dormant, from leaf fall until bud swell, in a hole wider than the roots and no deeper. Set the root flare at the soil line, put the native soil back in, and keep the mulch clear of the trunk. Gather the samaras from the tree as they turn brown. Sow them outdoors in fall, half an inch deep in a mulched bed. For spring, hold them damp in the refrigerator for 30 to 90 days first.

Water weekly through the first two summers. After that it needs water only in a long drought, though it looks better with some in dry weather. Deer browse the twigs and leaves now and then, so guard young stems for the first few years. Train it to one leader while it is young, since it seldom takes a good shape without pruning.

Most trees carry only male or only female flowers, so plant several if you want seed. It is free of serious pests and diseases, though scale, borers and aphids can show up. It is susceptible to verticillium wilt, and the leaves may scorch in drought.

Heights and zones are typical ranges for the species in cultivation; local conditions and seed source shift them.

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