Acer macrophyllum, the bigleaf maple or Oregon maple, is a large deciduoustree in the genus Acer. Big Leaf Maple can grow up to tall, but more commonly reaches tall. It is native to western North America, mostly near the Pacific coast, from southernmost Alaska to southern California. Some stands are also found inland in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains of central California, and a tiny population occurs in central Idaho.
Description
Big Leaf Maple has the largest leaves of any maple, typically across, with five deeply incised palmate lobes, with the largest running to. In the fall, the leaves turn to gold and yellow, often to spectacular effect against the backdrop of evergreen conifers. The flowers Big Leaf Maple produces in spring in pendulous racemes long, greenish-yellow with inconspicuous petals. The fruit is a paired winged samara, each seed in diameter with a wing. In the more humid parts of its range, such as in the Olympic National Park, Big Leaf Maple's bark is covered with epiphyticmoss and fern species.
Habitat
Bigleaf maple can form pure stands on moist soils in proximity to streams, but are generally found within riparianhardwood forests or dispersed,, relatively open canopies of conifers, mixed evergreens, or oaks In cool and moist temperate mixed woods they are one of the dominant species. It is very rare north of Vancouver Island though cultivated in Prince Rupert, near Ketchikan and in Juneau.
Ecology and uses
The winged fruits are eaten by squirrels, and by grosbeaks in the winter. Bigleaf maple has been used for creating syrup but it is not common. This is because sugar maple has a higher sugar content. Nevertheless, syrup production has become a localized industry in bigleaf maple groves where weather conditions are especially suitable, such as near sea-level in British Columbia and at higher elevations along the West Coast from Washington through Northern California.
Lumber
Bigleaf maple is the only commercially important maple of the Pacific Coast region. The wood is used for applications as diverse as furniture, piano frames and salad bowls. Highly figured wood is not uncommon and is used for veneer, stringed instruments, guitar bodies, and gun stocks. The wood is primarily used in veneer production for furniture, but is also used in musical instrument production, interior paneling, and other hardwood products; the heartwood is light, reddish-brown, fine-grained, moderately heavy, and moderately hard and strong. Native Americans used the wood to make canoe paddles. In California, land managers do not highly value bigleaf maple, and it is often intentionally knocked over and left un-harvested during harvest of Douglas fir and redwood stands.
Food
has been made from the sap of bigleaf maple trees. While the sugar concentration is about the same as in Acer saccharum, the flavor is somewhat different. Interest in commercially producing syrup from bigleaf maple sap has been limited. Although not traditionally used for syrup production, it takes about 40 volumes of sap to produce 1 volume of maple syrup. Big Leaf Maple leaves are used as browse by black-tailed deer, mule deer, and horses during the sapling stage. A western Oregon study found that 60 percent of bigleaf maple seedlings over tall had been browsed by deer, most several times.
Big Tree
The current national champion bigleaf maple is located in Lane County, Oregon. It has a circumference of —or an average diameter at breast height of about —and is tall with a crown spread of. The previous national champion is located in Marion, Oregon, and has a circumference of —or an average diameter at breast height of about —and is tall with a crown spread of.
