Acer pensylvanicum
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Acer pensylvanicum, known as the striped maple, moosewood, moose maple or goosefoot maple, is a small North American species of maple. The striped maple is a sequential hermaphrodite, meaning that it can change its sex throughout its lifetime.
Description
The striped maple is a small deciduous tree growing to Template:Convert tall, with a trunk up to Template:Convert in diameter.[1] The shape of the tree is broadly columnar, with a short, forked trunk that divides into arching branches which create an uneven, flat-topped crown.Script error: No such module "Unsubst".
The young bark is striped with green and white, and when a little older, brown.[1]
The leaves are broad and soft, Template:Convert long and Template:Convert broad, with three shallow forward-pointing lobes.[1]
The fruit is a samara; the seeds are about Template:Convert long and Template:Convert broad, with a wing angle of 145° and a conspicuously veined pedicel.[1][2][3]
The bloom period for Acer pensylvanicum is around late spring.[4]
Distribution
The natural range of the striped maple extends from Nova Scotia and the Gaspé Peninsula of Quebec, west to southern Ontario, Michigan, and Saskatchewan; south to northeastern Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, and along the Appalachian Mountains as far south as northern Georgia.[5][6]
Ecology
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Moosewood is an understory tree of cool, moist forests, often preferring slopes. It is among the most shade-tolerant of deciduous trees, capable of germinating and persisting for years as a small understory shrub, then growing rapidly to its full height when a gap opens up. However, it does not grow high enough to become a canopy tree, and once the gap above it closes through succession, it responds by flowering and fruiting profusely, and to some degree spreading by vegetative reproduction.[7][8]
Mammals such as moose, deer, beavers, and rabbits eat the bark, particularly during the winter.[9]
References
External links
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