Return to Native Trees of the Southern Rocky Mountains

The Bigtooth maple is common in the northern and eastern mountains of Utah, and less in Colorado, where it grows only in western canyons, streamsides and hillsides, such as north-facing cliffs in Mesa Verde Park. It grows in the Ponderosa pine zone from 7000 to 8000 feet in elevation, often as a shrub with several stems to about 10 or 20 feet high, sometimes as a tree with a single trunk 6 inches or more across. Maximum height is about 40 or 50 feet.

This is close relative of the Sugar maple, and maple syrup can be made from the sap, at a ratio of 43 gallons of sap for one gallon of syrup. Numerous small birds and mammals eat the seeds, buds and flowers. Squirrels and chipmunks make caches of seeds. Bigtooth maple provides browse for moose, mule deer, and elk, though there are no moose where it is found in Utah and Colorado.

Another common name is Canyon maple. The scientific name is Acer grandidentatum , the big-toothed maple.

Leaves: "maple-shaped" with three to five blunt lobes, dark green, 2 to 4 1/2 inches long and wide. Fall color is a deep red, or yellow and orange.

Fruit: 2-winged samara 1/2 to 1 inch long; young seeds are rose color. Flowers appear in the spring (April and May) before the leaves.

Stems: branchlets covered with short hairs. Variety violaceum has smooth twigs.

Bark: thin, gray to brown, separating into plate-like scales.