BIG LEAF MAPLE USES FREE

The inner bark was used to make baskets and ropes. The lumber has been used by our people to create dishes, pipes and paddles. The Bigleaf Maple has been part of our culture for since time immemorial. The bark has a distinctive pattern of grooves that are interlaced and 4-sided raised ridges. This is a symbiotic relationship, as both the Bigleaf Maple and the other plants share nutrients.

The calcium rich bark hosts these mosses, liverworts and lichens. With interlacing grooves, the bark can be home to many other forest plants that sometimes forms a blanket of greens and yellows. The bark has a greyish-brown to reddish-brown colour. On Vancouver Island, the Bigleaf Maple is a dominant species in the mixed species forests. These trees can also generally be found within hardwood forests or open coniferous and mixed evergreen forests. Pure Bigleaf Maple tree stands are located in coarse, gravelly, moist soil in close proximity to streams, rivers and lakes. Small forest creatures such as squirrels, birds and mice eat the seeds of the tree. The shape of the fruit allows it to ride the wind and go further afield from it’s parent tree. The samara is a flattened wing of paper thin fibre.

The paired wing samara has two seeds embedded inside. The fruit of the Bigleaf Maple is well known to children and adults alike. The flowers hang in clusters at the very end of the small twigs. In spring, the Bigleaf Maple produces flowers which are long and greenish-yellow in colour. Leaves always grow as pairs as do the twigs of the leaf. The stalk of the leaf has a milky liquid that oozes when broken. This is a time of year where the Bigleaf Maple stands out in the coniferous forests of Vancouver Island, and when a hike through the forest provides a glimpse as to what the forests of eastern Canada look like in the fall. This green turns to yellow and gold once autumn comes and then the leaves fall off in near the end of October and into the beginning of November. The leaf has five lobes, blunt irregular teeth on the edges, are dark and shiny green on the top and a lighter green on the underside. Typically the leaves are 15-30cm wide and five-lobed. The leaves of a Bigleaf Maple are the largest in Canada.

BIG LEAF MAPLE USES FREE

The trunk diverges into numerous long, thick vertical limbs. With a broad canopy that can extend 15 metres (50 feet), the long trunk is branch free for usually half the height of the tree. But they can grow up to 40-50 metres (131-164 feet) tall. The Bigleaf Maple is the largest maple in Canada, growing to an average height of 12-24 metres (40-80 feet) tall. Here on Vancouver Island, the Bigleaf Maple is the largest and most common maple tree. It’s range extends from southern Alaska to southern California. The Bigleaf Maple (Acer macrophyllum) is a large deciduous tree that grows in the south-western region of the province of British Columbia, Canada.

Big leaf maple uses