Appearance
The bigleaf maple has the largest leaves of any maple, typically 15–30 cm across, with five deeply incised palmate lobes, with the largest running to 61 centimetres. In the fall, the leaves turn to gold and yellow, often to spectacular effect against the backdrop of evergreen conifers.In spring, bigleaf maple produces flowers in pendulous racemes 10–15 cm long, greenish-yellow with inconspicuous petals. It is hermaphroditic, bearing both male and female flowers in each raceme. The flowers appear in early spring, before the leaves.
The fruit is a paired winged samara, each seed 1–1.5 centimetres in diameter with a 4–5-centimetre wing. Bigleaf maple begins bearing seed at about ten years of age.
Habitat
Bigleaf maples can form pure stands on moist soils in proximity to streams, but are generally found within riparian hardwood forests or dispersed, relatively open canopies of conifers, mixed evergreens, or oaks In cool and moist temperate mixed woods they are one of the dominant species.References:
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