One of the best trees for autumn colour, second only to Sugar Maple (p. xxx). Tolerant of waterlogged soils, it is sometimes known as Swamp Maple. Introduced 1656.

Native to eastern Canada, and to central and eastern USA. Cultivars increasingly popular.

Monoecious, hermaphrodite flowers. Insect-pollinated. Seeds dispersed by gravity and water.

Medium (25-30m), with a fairly dense crown and sinuous branches. Bark grey and smooth, darkening with longitudinal fissures and plates. Twigs slender, glabrous; buds opposite, small, ovoid, red. Foliage turns yellow-scarlet in autumn. Leaves 6-18cm, flimsy, with 3-5 lobes (the terminal largest), light green above, paler or glaucous below, serrate or biserrate, on a 5-10cm red-green petiole. Flowers yellow-red before the leaves. Samaras have red-tinged, acutely angled wings and convex nutlets. It hybridises with Silver Maple.