5a. ssp. floridanum (Chapm.) Desmarais (southern sugar maple; Florida maple)
A. saccharum var. floridanum (Chapm.) Small
& A. Heller
A. nigrum F. Michx. var. floridanum
(Chapm.) Fosberg
A. floridanum (Chapm.) Pax
A. barbatum Michx.
Bark light gray,
smooth, becoming shallowly furrowed and sometimes with scaly ridges on older
trees. Leaf blades 3–10 cm long, the undersurface pale green to
whitish-glaucous and usually also hairy, the lobes blunt to rounded at the
tips, usually with few secondary lobes or teeth, the sinuses between the main
leaf lobes forming angles of less than 90°, the margins often slightly curled
under. Calyx with dense white hairs on the inner surface that often extend past
the lobes. Flower stalks elongating to 3–6 cm, usually hairy. Ovary and young
fruit hairy (becoming nearly glabrous at maturity). April–May.
Uncommon in
southern and central Missouri (southeastern U.S. west to Oklahoma
and Texas).
Mesic upland forests, ledges and bases of bluffs, and banks of streams, rarely
bottomland forests.
This uncommon
taxon is perhaps the most distinctive element within the sugar maple complex in
Missouri, by
virtue of its beechlike bark and relatively small leaves. It is most common
along the Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plains and is at the edge of its range in Missouri. See the
treatment of ssp. schneckii for discussion of specimens that have
intermediate leaf characters between ssp. floridanum and ssp. saccharum.