Identify a maple leaf by species
Photograph the leaf and find out whether it is sugar maple, red, silver or Norway — the four that get mixed up.
Choose a leaf photo
Drag a photo here, or tap to choose. JPG or PNG. A clear, close shot works best.
The ten-second sap test
Pick a leaf and snap the stalk where it meets the blade. If a bead of milky white sap appears immediately, you have a Norway maple. Sugar maple, red maple and silver maple all bleed clear sap or nothing at all.
This is the fastest way to separate sugar maple from Norway maple, and those two are the hardest pair, because their leaf shape genuinely overlaps. Both have five lobes with rounded sinuses.
Do it before you look at anything else. It saves you from a long and inconclusive comparison of leaf outlines.
The four maples side by side
| Feature | Sugar maple | Red maple | Silver maple | Norway maple |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lobes | 5, usually 3 prominent | 3-5 | 5, deeply cut | 5 |
| Sinuses | Rounded, U-shaped | V-shaped, angular | Very deep, cut almost to the base | Rounded, U-shaped |
| Leaf edge | Smooth, only a few sparse teeth | Finely toothed all round | Strongly toothed | Smooth to slightly toothed |
| Stalk sap | Clear or none | Clear or none | Clear or none | Milky white |
| Autumn colour | Orange to red, often yellow | Brilliant scarlet | Pale yellow | Yellow, sometimes orange |
| Syrup worth | The syrup tree, about 2% sugar | Tappable but poor yield | Tappable but poor yield | Not used for syrup |
Reading the leaf properly
- Count the lobes, but do not trust the count alone. Sugar maple often shows three prominent lobes and two smaller basal ones, which is why people argue about whether it has three or five.
- Look at the shape of the notch between the lobes. Sugar maple is rounded and U-shaped. Red maple is sharp and V-shaped. This is more reliable than lobe count.
- Look at the edge. Sugar maple has a smooth margin with only a few irregular teeth. Red maple is finely toothed the whole way around, like a saw blade.
- Check the size. Norway maple leaves are usually noticeably larger and wider than sugar maple, and they hold a deeper green.
- Look at the leaf stalk. Norway maple stalks are longer, and they bleed. Sugar maple stalks are shorter.
- Rule out box elder immediately if the leaf is divided into separate leaflets. Box elder is the only common maple with compound leaves.
The autumn colour
Sugar maple is the tree that gives New England its autumn, and the colour is a genuine clue. It ranges from pure yellow through orange to deep red, and often all three appear on the same tree.
Red maple is the one that goes brilliant scarlet, uniformly, earlier than the others. Silver maple goes a weak pale yellow that is barely worth the wait.
Norway maple goes yellow, sometimes with orange, and it holds its leaves longer than the native maples, which is one of the reasons it dominates in places where it has escaped.
If you are identifying in summer with no colour to go on, the sap test and the sinus shape will do it.
Tapping, honestly
Sugar maple is the syrup tree for a reason: its sap is around two percent sugar, which means about forty litres of sap for one litre of syrup. That is already an enormous amount of boiling.
Red and silver maples can be tapped. They run earlier and the sap is thinner, around one percent sugar, so you need roughly twice as much sap for the same syrup. People do it, and it works, but it is twice the fuel and twice the time.
Norway maple is not used commercially for syrup and the sap is poor.
One practical note: tapping a tree does it no harm if you do it properly. Drill a hole no deeper than two inches, into healthy wood, on the south side, and plug nothing — the tree seals the wound itself.
Sugar maple, red maple, silver maple and Norway maple all turn up in the same gardens, and from a distance they all look like a maple. Up close they are quite different, and the differences matter — one is the syrup tree, one is a weed of a street tree, and one will give you almost nothing if you try to tap it.
The single most useful trick I know is one almost nobody mentions. Break the leaf stalk. Norway maple bleeds a milky white sap. Sugar maple does not. It takes ten seconds and it is decisive.
Here is the rest of what to look at.
Frequently Asked Questions
Five lobes, usually three prominent, with rounded U-shaped sinuses between them and a mostly smooth margin with only a few sparse teeth. The stalk does not bleed milky sap. Compare the sinus shape with red maple, which is sharply V-shaped.