“Sugar We’re Going Down” – The Sugar Maple Plant Highlight
When Fall Out Boy sang,
“We’re going down, down in an earlier round
And sugar, we’re going down swinging,”
they were actually referring to leaves falling in autumn and the wonderful process of tapping sugar maple trees for syrup (not really, but wouldn’t it be funny).
—
Maples provide delicious syrup and fabulous fall color. You can bathe in their warm pigments at the Washington Park Arboretum and Center for Urban Horticulture as the season cools.
One of these vibrant displays comes from the sugar maple (Acer saccharum), which is the primary species from which we get maple syrup! This deciduous tree is native to the northeastern United States and eastern Canada, and can live up to 200-300 years old. Our northern neighbor, Canada, bears the sugar maple on its flag.
Other species of maple are also used to make syrup (including our native bigleaf maple), but sugar maple has the highest sugar content on average. Yummy! Sap is extracted by drilling a hole into the phloem tissue of the tree, which is responsible for transporting organic molecules like sugar. Then, a tap is inserted into the hole and sap consisting of mostly water is extracted and boiled to produce syrup. Forty gallons of sap creates only one gallon of syrup!
Maple tapping originates from the practices of Indigenous groups including the Abenaki, Algonquin, Iroquois, and Ojibwe peoples. Sap containers were originally fashioned from birch bark, stitched together by spruce roots, and sealed with pine pitch. For collecting sap, a cut was made into the trunk, a reed inserted into that cut, and sap would flow down the reed into the birch containers. In the 16th century, this process was adapted by European settlers.
Now, mass maple production has been streamlined with the assistance of drills, vacuum pumps, and larger storage containers. Indigenous folks and the average homemaker still collect syrup using smaller scale tools.
You can visit sugar maples at the Washington Park Arboretum! Search the Latin name, Acer saccharum on our interactive map. One specimen is located in the lower parking lot by the entrance to the Broadmoor neighborhood and golf course. This specimen is shedding its leaves quite fast, so go say hello before it’s too late!
For other fabulous plants, check out our Cuttings Blog Post: Fantastic Fall Colors at the Washington Park Arboretum (uw.edu)
Sources:
Special thanks to Catherine Nelson for helping put together this article!