The Chalk Maple - Acer leucoderme, is most easily distinguished by it's small size and relatively small squarish-lobed leaves that are green beneath. It is a deciduous small tree or large shrub that reaches heights of only 40 feet tall on average. It grows in an erect form generally with a single upright trunk, occasionally a multiple trunk but always with an open spreading crown. It is native to well drained upland woods, stream terraces, calcereous woodlands from 10-300 m, generally restricted to the Piedmont and sparingly in the coastal plains of North Carolina and Virginia on South through Florida, west to eastern Texas and eastern Oklahoma. It is very similar to the Southern Sugar Maple and overlaps in range.
Image Citation: John Ruter, University of Georgia, Bugwood.org
The bark is smooth gray in color, the twigs are red-brown in color, lustrous, smooth and hairless. The leaves are opposite, simple, thin and as broad as they are long. The upper leaf surface is a lustrous yellow-green, the lower is a more even green. The leaves turn a beautiful Salmon, Orange, Yellow or Purple-Red color in the fall. The Yellow-Green flower is tiny in size with 5 sepals occurring in Mid-Spring. The fruit occurs in paired samaras 2.5-3 cm long, widely angled from the point of attachment.
Image Citation: John Ruter, University of Georgia, Bugwood.org
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