Not a maple?

D

dmonn

Branched out member
Location
Port Washington Wisconsin
When I was growing up (1950s and '60s) we had some large trees in our back yard. We used to climb them all the time. The younger branches had smooth bark, but the trunks had plates of bark that curled out a little. Not as shaggy as a hickory, but sort of similar plates. My parents always called them maples, but I haven't seen bark like that when I browse photos of maples.

A friend asked me to do some pruning for him, and one of the trees was the same as the ones I grew up with. I referred to it as a maple, and he questioned that. The leaves, as I remember them from my childhood, looked like a "classic" maple leaf. No leaves this time of year, and I'm kicking myself for not taking a photo or two of the tree. Any suggestions just based on my description?
 
dmonn said:
When I was growing up (1950s and '60s) we had some large trees in our back yard. We used to climb them all the time. The younger branches had smooth bark, but the trunks had plates of bark that curled out a little. Not as shaggy as a hickory, but sort of similar plates. My parents always called them maples, but I haven't seen bark like that when I browse photos of maples.

A friend asked me to do some pruning for him, and one of the trees was the same as the ones I grew up with. I referred to it as a maple, and he questioned that. The leaves, as I remember them from my childhood, looked like a "classic" maple leaf. No leaves this time of year, and I'm kicking myself for not taking a photo or two of the tree. Any suggestions just based on my description?
Click to expand...
Difficult without seeing pictures but what you describe sounds an awful lot like Acer saccharum (Sugar/hard maple).
 
Acer saccharinum (Silver maple) can also have very "shaggy" bark. I think of Sugar maple as more "platey" where the bark is peeling off at the sides while Silver maple is more prone to peel off at the tops and bottoms of the pieces peeling. Both will have smooth young branches.

Not Sycamore (or London Plane) is it? That also has exfoliating bark and the leaves are very maple-looking.
 
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