The stalwart Sugar Maples that sometimes reach a height of 100 feet or more are found from the Gaspé Peninsula to Manitoba, but they are at their best and most abundant in the mixed forests of the Great Lakes, New England, Quebec and Southern Canada.
This is the tree that gave Canada its emblem, the Maple Leaf. It is also the tree that in the northern part of its range, produces the sap that, becomes the maple syrup and maple sugar of commerce.
It is not difficult, even for a beginner, to distinguish one species of Maple from another. The greenish-yellow flowers of the Sugar Maple are not presented in flamboyant clusters like those of the Norway Maple but hang modestly and almost shyly on thin stalks or pedicels 2 to 4 inches long amid the early foliage.
