A blooming sugar maple (click here) is one of the most conspicuous trees in the landscape, except that it's not obvious that the trees are actually flowering. The flowers are quite small, borne abundantly in clusters, each at the end of a long dangling flower stalk (pedicel). All these parts are light yellow-green, presenting a very bright display that stands out, but with little apparent detail, so might be mistaken for leaf-out, which hasn't happened yet (branch/leaf buds are just breaking when the bloom is in full force)....
The flower is 3/16 inch long with bell-shaped 5 lobed greenish yellowish flowers. The flower clusters contain both male and female parts. They are drooping together on long slender hairy stalks. The Sugar Maple blooms in early Spring.
The bark on the Sugar Maple is light grey. With age it can be (brown, gray, or near black, often with an orange interior bark). The bark runs vertically is rough and deeply furrowed into narrow scaly ridges.
The twig is slender, greenish to brown or gray. This particular twig has a bud.
