A cousin of ours called the other day, said he had half of his maple tree split off in the winds we've had lately. I picked a leaf from it last night. Doesn't look like the red/soft maple that grows in our wetland areas. Plant app said sugar maple...
Looks like sugar to me. If it's not, it might be black maple too (I'm not familiar with those personally though)
It looks like a Caddo Sugar Maple. Legacy is another heat tolerant cultivar with thicker dark leathery leaves. The typical Sugar Maple struggles in my hardiness zone.
Doesn’t look like the standard red maple leaf to me. I think red maple has some serrations (not sure if term is correct) but your leaf looks smooth on the edges. I wonder is it’s black maple. I for a long time I thought we had a number of black maple trees at the place in western Maine. Turned out they were all red maple just with much shaggier bark than I see down in CT. Maybe a climate thing.
Just did some googling. Looks like red maple has a red leaf stem ( yours doesn’t) and serrations on leaf ( yours doesn’t). I’d have to guess black maple but the native range map I saw says they’re not in Georgia. Map could be wrong I guess. I’ll say black maple.
If it were growing here, that’s a red maple. Sugar maple leaves are larger and with deeper fingers, usually five of them. Red Maple always has three pronounced fingers and usually two smaller ones at the base
A little more information would be helpful. What does the bark tell you T.Jeff Veal ? Was this a planted yard tree or a tree growing out in the “woods”? How does the smallest branches geometry look? Do they grow out at more of a 90 degree angle or more 45 degrees? Do those little newest branches look more maroon/red or amber/brown?
The way I was taught it is that the sinus on a sugar maple will have a curved sinus, and on a red maple it will be at a right angle. The simple thing to remember ‘sugar bowl’.
There are literally hundreds of cross bred maples in Vermont the university here been documenting them since 1800s. Sugar maple legacy is from Chud above is original.. others are cross breeds here a sugar content of sap in spring will give you accurate answers Red 1-3% Sugar 3-7%
