Bigleaf Maple (Edible Plants on UC Berkeley Campus)

Bigleaf Maple

Acer macrophyllum

Description ⁴

General: Maple Family (Aceraceae). Bigleaf maple is a native, long-lived medium to large sized deciduous tree that often grows to eighty feet tall. The leaves are simple, opposite, and very large between fifteen to thirty centimeters wide and almost as long (Farrar 1995). The flowers are yellow, fragrant, and produced in noddling racemes appearing with the leaves in April or May. The fruit is paired, 2.5 - 4 centimeters long, and brown with stiff yellowish hair. The bark is smooth and gray-brown on young stems, becoming red-brown and deeply fissured, and broken into scales on the surface (Preston 1989).

Distribution: Acer macrophyllum is distributed around the coast region of southeastern Alaska, on the West Side of the Cascades and Sierra Nevada from British Columbia through most of California. For current distribution, please consult the Plant profile page for this species on the PLANTS Web site.

Distribution ⁵

The native range of bigleaf maple extends from latitude 33° to 51° N., always within 300 km (186 mi) of the Pacific Ocean. This maple is not found in southeastern Alaska or on the Queen Charlotte Islands (34), but it does grow on Vancouver Island at least as far north as Port Hardy (25). On the mainland, the range is a continuous belt from near Sullivan Bay, BC, to within 16 km (10 mi) of San Francisco Bay, CA-a belt that includes the western slopes of the Coast Ranges of British Columbia, the Olympic Peninsula in Washington, the Coast Ranges of Oregon and California, and the western slopes of the Cascade Range in Oregon and Washington. The species is less common south of San Francisco Bay, but extensive stands are found in the Santa Cruz and Santa Lucia Mountains. Isolated groves are scattered along the southern California coast to San Diego County. Bigleaf maple is common on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada north of the Yuba River and is present in less abundance as far south as Sequoia National Park (11).

Most of the estimated volume of standing sawtimber is found in Washington (about 19.6 million m³ or 3.43 billion fbm) and Oregon (about 18.0 million m³ or 3.16 billion fbm). Almost half this timber is in Lewis and Whatcom Counties in Washington and Douglas and Lane Counties in Oregon (17). The estimated 1.1 million m³ (200 million fbm) of bigleaf maple in British Columbia is found on the south coast and Vancouver Island (16).

-The native range of bigleaf maple.

Habitat ⁶

Bigleaf maple occurs chiefly primarily in cool, mosit habitats, being common in numerous canyons and streambank settings. The specie thrives in a variety of soil types, but most typically found in rich humus soils that are moist and gravelly. Frequent fires promote the growth of this species in many locales.

The bigleaf maple is also the principal forest species in areas where the land is burned or logged, such as in some sections of southwestern Oregon.
The taxon often occurs in dense stands over large tracts of land, in small groves, or scattered. It is usually found in proximity to both evergreen broad-leaved species or coniferous trees, such as lowland Douglas firs, Quercus spp., California bay laurel, Red alder, Pacific madrone, Cypress spp., California redwood, and California laurel.

Edible ⁷

The winged seeds are popular delicacies in itself. When the seeds are picked when still green, the seeds have a slight bitter but sweet taste. To get rid of the bitter taste, one could boil the seeds and simply mix with a couple ingredients for a healthy, delicious snack.

Sources and Credits

More Info

Range Map

iNat Map

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Bigleaf Maple

Description 4

Distribution 5

Habitat 6

Edible 7