Product Code Database
Acer is a genus of and commonly known as maples. The genus is placed in the soapberry family Sapindaceae.Stevens, P. F. (2001 onwards). Angiosperm Phylogeny Website. Version 9, June 2008 and. http://www.mobot.org/MOBOT/research/APweb/. There are approximately 132 species, most of which are native to Asia, with a number also appearing in Europe, northern Africa, and North America. Only one species, Acer laurinum, extends to the Southern Hemisphere.Gibbs, D. & Chen, Y. (2009) The Red List of Maples Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) The type species of the genus is the sycamore maple Acer pseudoplatanus, one of the most common maple species in Europe.van Gelderen, C. J. & van Gelderen, D. M. (1999). Most maples usually have easily identifiable palmate leaves (with a few exceptions, such as Acer carpinifolium, Acer laurinum, and Acer negundo) and all share distinctive winged fruits. The closest relative of the maples is the small east Asian genus Dipteronia, followed by the more widespread genus Aesculus (buckeyes and horse-chestnuts). Maple syrup is made from the sap of some maple species. It is one of the most common genera of trees in Asia. Many maple species are grown in gardens where they are valued for their autumn colour and often decorative foliage, some also for their attractive flowers, fruit, or bark.[2] Crowley (2020) Acer L. from the website Trees and Shrubs Online
Maples are distinguished by opposite leaf arrangement. The leaves in most species are leaf shape veined and lobed, with 3 to 9 (rarely to 13) veins each leading to a lobe, one of which is central or apical. A small number of species differ in having palmate compound, leaf shape compound, pinnate veined or unlobed leaves. Several species, including Acer griseum (paperbark maple), Acer mandshuricum (Manchurian maple), Acer maximowiczianum (Nikko maple) and Acer triflorum (three-flowered maple), have trifoliate leaves. One species, Acer negundo (box-elder or Manitoba maple), has pinnately compound leaves that may be simply trifoliate or may have five, seven, or rarely nine leaflets. A few, such as Acer laevigatum (Nepal maple) and Acer carpinifolium (hornbeam maple), have pinnately veined simple leaves.
Maple species, such as Acer rubrum, may be monoecious, dioecious or polygamodioecious. The are regular, pentamerous, and borne in , , or . They have four or five , four or five about 1–6 mm long (absent in some species), four to ten about 6–10 mm long, and two or a pistil with two styles. The ovary is superior and has two , whose wings elongate the flowers, making it easy to tell which flowers are female. Maples flower in late winter or early spring, in most species with or just after the appearance of the leaves, but in some before the trees leaf out.Huxley, A., ed. (1992). New RHS Dictionary of Gardening. Macmillan .
Maple flowers are green, yellow, orange or red. Though individually small, the effect of an entire tree in flower can be striking in several species. Some maples are an early spring source of pollen and nectar for .
The distinctive are called samaras, "maple keys", "helicopters", "whirlybirds" or "polynoses". These occur in distinctive pairs each containing one seed enclosed in a "nutlet" attached to a flattened wing of fibrous, papery tissue. They are shaped to spin as they fall and to carry the seeds a considerable distance on the wind. People often call them "helicopters" due to the way that they spin as they fall. During World War II, the US Army developed a special airdrop supply carrier that could carry up to of supplies and was based on the maple seed. "Sky Hook Spirals from Plane" Popular Mechanics, December 1944, p. 75. Seed maturation is usually in a few weeks to six months after flowering, with seed dispersal shortly after maturity. However, one tree can release hundreds of thousands of seeds at a time. Depending on the species, the seeds can be small and green to orange and big with thicker seed pods. The green seeds are released in pairs, sometimes with the stems still connected. The yellow seeds are released individually and almost always without the stems. Most species require stratification in order to germination, and some seeds can remain dormant in the soil for several years before germinating.
The genus Acer, together with genus Dipteronia, were formerly often classified in a family of their own, the Aceraceae, but recent botanical consensus, including the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group system, includes them in the family Sapindaceae; their exclusion from Sapindaceae would leave that family paraphyly. Within Sapindaceae, Acer is placed in the subfamily Hippocastanoideae. The genus is subdivided by its morphology into a multitude of sections and subsections. Molecular studies incorporating DNA sequence data from both chloroplast and nuclear genomes, aiming to resolve the internal relationships and reconstruct the evolutionairy history of the group, suggest a Late Paleocene origin for the group, appearing first in the northeastern Palearctic. Rapid lineage divergence was followed by several independent dispersals to the Nearctic and Western Palearctic regions. Fifty-four species of maples meet the International Union for Conservation of Nature criteria for being under threat of extinction in their native habitat.
Infestations of the Asian long-horned beetle ( Anoplophora glabripennis) have resulted in the destruction of thousands of maples and other tree species in Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Ohio in the United States and Ontario, Canada. September 18, 2003 Asian Longhorned Beetle discovered in York Region
Maples are affected by a number of fungus diseases. Several are susceptible to Verticillium wilt caused by Verticillium species, which can cause significant local mortality. Sooty bark disease, caused by Cryptostroma species, can kill trees that are under stress due to drought. Death of maples can rarely be caused by Phytophthora root rot and Ganoderma root decay. Maple leaves in late summer and autumn are commonly disfigured by "tar spot" caused by Rhytisma species and mildew caused by Uncinula species, though these diseases do not usually have an adverse effect on the trees' long-term health.Phillips, D. H. & Burdekin, D. A. (1992). Diseases of Forest and Ornamental Trees. Macmillan. .
It is also in the name of the Canadian ice hockey team, the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The first attested use of the word was in 1260 as "mapole", and it also appears a century later in Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, spelled as "mapul". The maple is also a symbol of Hiroshima, ubiquitous in the local meibutsu.
A maple leaf, along with samaras, appears in the coat of arms of Sammatti, a former municipality of Uusimaa, Finland. (1982). 9789517730853, Suomen Kunnallisliitto. ISBN 9789517730853
Maple wood is often graded based on physical and aesthetic characteristics. The most common terminology includes the grading scale from common #2; which is unselected and often used for craft woods; common #1, used for commercial and residential buildings; clear; and select grade, which is sought for fine woodworking.
Some maple wood has a highly decorative wood grain, variously known as flame maple, quilt maple, birdseye maple and burl. This condition occurs randomly in individual trees of several species and often cannot be detected until the wood has been sawn, though it is sometimes visible in the standing tree as a rippled pattern in the bark.
These select decorative wood pieces also have subcategories that further filter the aesthetic looks. Crotch wood, bees wing, cats paw, old growth and mottled are some terms used to describe the look of these decorative woods. Wood Terms and Examples
Maples have a long history of use for furniture production in the United States. The Cherokee people would produce a purple dye from maple bark, which they used to dye cloth.
The back, sides, and neck of most , , , and are made from maple.
Electric guitar necks are commonly made from maple, having good dimensional stability. The necks of the Fender Stratocaster and Telecaster were originally an entirely maple one piece neck, but later were also available with rosewood fingerboards. Les Paul desired an all maple guitar, but due to the weight of maple, only the tops of Gibson's Les Paul guitars are made from carved maple, often using quilted or flamed maple tops. Due to its weight, very few solid body guitars are made entirely from maple, but many guitars have maple necks, tops or veneers.
Maple is also often used to make and sometimes for other woodwind instruments like maple recorders.
Many are made from maple. From the 1970s to the 1990s, maple drum kits were a vast majority of all drum kits made, but in recent years, birch has become popular for drums once again. Some of the best drum-building companies use maple extensively throughout their mid-pro range. Maple drums are favored for their bright resonant sound. Certain types of drum sticks are also made from maple.
Also, as these trees are a major source of pollen in early spring before many other plants have flowered, maple flowers are a source of foraging for that play a commercially important role in general agriculture and in natural habitats.
|
|
