Was it an ornamental tree? Or a tree in his woods? That would certainly narrow or expand the possibilities. The leaf looks like a sugar maple to me but if it’s an ornamental yard tree, it could be any number of varieties of a sugar maple. I’m originally from Caddo County Oklahoma where the Caddo maple is from. I’ve not heard of them being sold as an ornamental but they might be. I’ve always thought the Caddo maple was just a sugar maple that happened to grow native in a small spot in Caddo county with no discernible difference from a sugar maple other than where it was found growing. I may be wrong about that.
Cool stuff. I didn’t know about the cross breeding.i wonder if the BTU’s reflect an “average” between the trees or if it’s much more of one kind of species than another. Must vary from tree to tree
You seem to have some confusion about what the word cultivar means. That is a Caddo maple cultivar. That’s what Acer saccharum 'JFS-Caddo2' PP 23361 means. It’s a hybrid and not a naturally occurring tree. A true Caddo Maple is pretty much only found naturally occurring in Caddo county in Oklahoma. Many of the other trees you have listed are also cultivars. They are all nursery trees. While it is possible to propagate cultivars sexually it’s rarely done because more often than not undesirable traits are passed on. Cultivars are commonly propagated asexually by grafting, budding, or by some other modern nursery technique. And no I did not need the Google to write any of that. It’s possible Jeff has one cultivar or another falling into the multitude of nursery trees advertised as “sugar maple.” Is it a true sugar maple. Not likely. The reason the leaf doesn’t look like a true hard maple leaf is because it isn’t a naturally occurring hard maple. It’s been hybridized with another maple to be heat tolerant. In this case likely a red maple cultivar. When Jeff provides more pictures we could probably speculate further as the what particular cultivars it may be. There are Red cultivars with many hard maple traits as well. To further muddy the waters Maple will readily hybridize on its own naturally. One of the best examples of that is Acer x freemanii or Freeman’s maple a naturally occurring hybrid of both Red and Silver maple. Hence the reason for all my questions earlier. One thing we can probably all agree upon is that it will make gooder firewood
Dixie disposable plates right beside it provide plenty of scale bud. Here’s a Norway and a hand for scale
Ok, I went by after work and got some pictures and talked to my cousin. He said his son planted that tree when he was in school, so tree is about 50-55 years old, probably. His son is 65. The part we're getting Bark Limb growth Lower leaves Close up... Wood... It will definitely be farwood....
Bark pic looks like sugar for the most part, but with claims to red maple too. Now that I see more leaf pics I'm saying a hybrid of some sort. Not that often you get maple, huh Jeff?
The heartwood and those leaves are of the harder variety I’d say. Sugar Maple here has almost no heart or at least it’s very small. Red maple has a heart near half the diameter
I do know that cultivars are asexually produced clones of the parent. The cultivars are from caddos chosen for their heat and drought resistance. Cultivars are chosen for unique colors or structure also. Someone names it, takes cuttings and makes clones.I don’t know that is what Jeff’s tree is. Typical sugar maple suffers in my hardiness zone and Jeff is further south, so I’m speculating it’s related to caddo. It could be just a plain saccharum. The cultivar leaves I took pictures of were close by so that’s what I used for reference. I could have listed them as Red, Caddo and Sugar but I know the cultivars. Finding naturally occurring trees would have been more work. Carry on
No, not often. Our native maple is the soft maple, common in wet areas. May see some other varieties planted in a yard.
You gonna be able to handle those Jeff? Not all nice and straight like the wood you normally get? Gotta take the good with the bad sometimes. Nice to have a change of species from time to time.
The homeowner had trimmed it up, he was sure saving it... I'm sure I'll suffer through it and make plenty of chunks... Might even see if my board straightener will work on logs...
