Big love for the Bigleaf Maple

If you’ve ever taken fall photos of your face half covered by a huge brown or yellow maple leaf, you were probably posing with a true Washington bestie, the bigleaf maple.

Bigleaf maple, or Acer macrophyllum (macro meaning big and phyllum for leaf), is one of the larger deciduous trees you’ll see on a walk through most western Washington state parks. (Our Arbor Crew can’t say enough about the bigleaf maples at Dosewallips.)

Helicopter seeds and bittersweet flowers

Aside from being large and photogenic, the leaves of this tree are deeply furrowed. You can also identify the bigleaf by its gray bark that darkens to brown and gets more textured with age.

In winter the bare tree shows an opposite branch attachment, in which smaller branches grow like pairs of outstretched arms on either side of bigger branches.

The bigleaf has winged seeds that fly like helicopters when they fall. The seeds, called samaras, grow in large clusters at the tips of the branches. 

In the spring, you can eat the small green flowers that hang in dense clusters from the tips of the smallest branches. They are sweet and bitter.

Reach for the sun

Look for bigleaf maples in lowland riparian areas next to streams, or in areas that frequently flood. 

This hardy tree is somewhat shade tolerant when it’s young, but the mature bigleaf reaches for full sun and can out-compete Doug fir if the soil is deep and wet enough.  Its large canopy and relative longevity in comparison to other riparian trees creates a complex, interconnected ecology.

Mutual benefit

Epiphytes such as licorice fern and many types of moss grow along the branches of bigleaf maples. As they grow, they begin to build up soil. The bigleaf maple grows aerial roots into that soil, which hold these fern and moss mats in place. The maple can then access additional water and nutrients while providing a niche for this unique pocket ecosystem.

Did someone say pancakes?

Incidentally, bigleaf maple sap is delicious. Though other maples (we’re looking at you, Canada, Vermont) are more famous for their syrup, this tree sap is sweet. It’s rarely rendered for syrup, and we honestly can’t figure out why.

Resilience

Other organisms do eat the bigleaf maple, and we’re not talking about the pancake-loving public. We’re talking about wood-destroying organisms.

Because of this, and the weight of the branches, the bigleaf maple sometimes drops huge sections of its canopy. Eventually, every tree will shed all its branches and leaves and be reduced to a stump. But, in the right conditions, the amazing maple can regrow itself from the root ball. At first it grows like a lattice over the stump, but eventually the maple can reach its original height again. Bigleafs can live to be 200 years old.

The timber economy

Bigleaf maple lumber is light blond to reddish brown in color. You can see ripples shimmer with an almost iridescent sheen once the wood has been planed. Maple is often used as a veneer in furniture or musical instruments.

Mature trees have been poached from protected areas because of their high value.  Citizen scientists are recording the genetics of bigleaf maples across the pacific northwest to create a database of the trees’ geographic distribution. Lumber mills can use this database to determine where the lumber came from, which could potentially discourage poaching.  

Winter, spring, summer or fall, the bigleaf maple is a sight to behold. We encourage you to come hang out with these magnificent trees in our Washington state parks.