NATURE / OUTDOORS
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9/18/07
The Red Maples of Stony Run
Anne Arundel County, MD Mark
Burchick
THE RED MAPLES of STONEY RUN
I collected a trinomial (third name)
variant of a red maple today in an Anne
Arundel County swamp.
In the photo
below and attached, I collected both a
common
Red Maple
Acer rubrum (FAC) and a
subspecies known as
Acer rubrum trilobum (FACW+) Trident
Red Maple
(like the three pronged spear)
or
Three-Lobed
Red Maple,
in a swamp near BWI airport, in Anne Arundel
County. The
A. rubrum trilobum has smaller
leaves than the common
Red Maple
and are distinctively 3-lobed and more
rounded at the base of the leaf. The
Trident Red
Maple
is an 'obligated' wetland species found in
nearly
persistent wet wetlands, such as
swamps. Uncommon, and habitat
specific, this tree can be found throughout
the eastern United States but is oriented
more so to southern Virginia and North
Carolina.
I've only seen this
subspecies on a handful of occasions.
|
I've also attached a PDF article about the
Trident Red Maple from the USDA.
Summer_2007/IdentificationOfPlantSpeciesTrinomials5_%2024_2007(2).pdf
