Sugar Maple–acer saccharum

photo of Sugar Maple trees.

Sugar or Sugar Maple is a common tree in the Great Lakes–St. Lawrence forest. The leaf of the Sugar Maple is found on the Canadian flag. It is most commonly found in the Great Lakes–St. Lawrence and Deciduous forest regions, and is also well known for maple syrup.

With a hard white wood, Sugar Maple is often used for furniture or flooring, but is also popular as firewood. Maple (all species) represents 4% of Ontario’s annual harvest, and Sugar Maple is 5% of the province’s total growing stock volume.

Map of Sugar Maple relative occurrence

map of Sugar Maple distribution in Ontario indicating low (light brown), moderate and high (dark green-brown) levels of relative occurrence.

Enlarge map of Sugar Maple relative occurrence

Area and proportion of Sugar Maple in the AOU (area in hectares)

Statistic Crown Parks and protected areas Other Total
Total Area Containing Sugar Maple 1,633,055 222,786 1,235,262 3,091,103
1-25% of stand 632,200 108,549 406,543 1,147,292
26-50% of stand 533,406 60,400 495,824 1,089,631
51-75% of stand 309,567 33,778 243,678 587,023
76-100% of stand 157,881 20,059 89,217 267,157
Average Proportion in All Forest (%) 2.4 12.0 3.1 3.6
Area of Sugar Maple Working Group 933,079 105,319 785,171 1,823,569

Growing stock volume of Sugar Maple in the AOU (volume in thousands of cubic metres)

Statistic Crown Parks and protected areas Other Total
Gross Total Volume 124,975 16,079 107,321 248,375
Net Merchantable Volume 79,840 10,150 70,663 160,653
Current Annual Increment 803 83 926 1,811

Sugar Maple working group area by age class

vertical bar graph of the Sugar Maple working group area by age class including brown for Crown, green for park and grey for other.