# Norway or Sugar Maple?



## Montanarchist (Feb 24, 2005)

A friend for the NW brought me out a bunch of maple saplings from the tree in his front yard. What kind do you think it is?


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## MELOC (Sep 26, 2005)

they look like norway maples to me. have your friend look for the seeds from the tree...in roof gutters or where ever. if a pair are shaped like a "V", they are norway. if they are more like a "U", or like a horseshoe, they are sugar maple.


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## Penny-Ontario (Oct 20, 2007)

I agree, they look like norway maples to me as well, we had one in our back yard for years, and we have just recently planted a sugar maple, although it just has buds at the moment, so its hard to compare leaves, but it looks Norway to me.
Good luck.


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## Micheal (Jan 28, 2009)

According to my "Know Your Trees" booklet your tree(s) doesn't seem to be a sugar maple:
Sugar maple - leaf; simple, opposite, from 3-5 inches long and fully as wide, from 3-5 shallow lobes with wide-spaced coarse teeth, dark green in color above, paler below; the clefts are rounded at the base. Your pics show more pointed clefts.....
Twigs; slender, shining, the color of maple sugar.
Bark; on young trees dark gray in color, close, smooth, and firm becoming furrowed into long irregular plates lifting along one edge.
Seed pods - as already discribed by others.....

No discription of the Norway maple other than a footnote stating that they are planted for shade and ornamental use.


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## Montanarchist (Feb 24, 2005)

Thanks everyone. That's what I was guessing but I was hoping it was a sugar.


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## Sweet Tator (Apr 6, 2009)

If it turns flaming red in the autumn, it's a Norway Maple. It's one of the "reddest-reds" you've ever seen. Really gorgeous! I paid a small fortune for a young one years back, and it's finally about 35 ft. tall.


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## MELOC (Sep 26, 2005)

sometimes it is hard to tell the rounded notch in the leaf from the pointed one when identifying norways/sugars. the telltale sign of one versus the other is the seed presentation. the norway will have a set of seeds that are connected in a wide "V" with the wings pointing to 4 o'clock and 8 o'clock. the sugar maple will have a set of seeds that are connected with a "U" and the wings will point to 7 o'clock and 5 o'clock.


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## NickieL (Jun 15, 2007)

it doesn't look like sugar maple to me. We have lots of those here and the leaves don't match with yours.


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## Riverdale (Jan 20, 2008)

Not an _Acer acer_ ie sugar maple

Either a Norway or 'possibly' box elder (solely on the shape of the leaves).


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