Native Plants

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Sunday - November 06, 2011

From: Westchester, IL
Region: Midwest
Topic: Trees
Title: Is a Brandywine Maple messy from Westchester IL
Answered by: Barbara Medford

QUESTION:

Brandywine Maple: Does this tree produce sap, seeds or flower? As a home owner I can't afford more maintenance with clogged gutters or a sap covered car. Thank you.

ANSWER:

While Acer rubrum (Red maple) is native to North America and to Illinois, 'Brandywine' has been developed as seen in this excerpt from Maple-tree.com:

"Development: 'Brandywine' resulted from a 1982 cross of Acer rubrum 'October Glory' and A. rubrum ' Autumn Flame' by A. M. Townsend as part of a research project examining the inheritance of fall color and leafhopper resistance, and an effort to improve existing cultivars of red maple. Released December, 1994. Significance: 'Brandywine' has a brilliant red-purple autumn color. It produces only male flowers; thus, no fruit or nuisance seedlings. It has a significant level of tolerance to potato leafhopper, better than or comparable to many commercially available red maple cultivars.

Apparently, this tree produces only male flowers, and therefore no fruit or nuisance seedlings. It does, however, produce a lot of leaves in the Fall. It would be nearly impossible to find any tree that would produce no waste products of one kind or another to clog your gutters. As for the sap that rises in the trees; in cold climates, these trees store starch in their trunks and roots before the winter-the starch is then converted to sugar that rises in the sap in the spring.

So, if you don't want litter or sap on your car, better not plant a maple over your car, and we really don't know what to suggest about the gutters. You can make decisions about location of plants and hardscape, but it is well nigh impossible to change the nature of a plant.

From the Image Gallery

Red maple
Acer rubrum