Need help with maple ID

[19Mateo83]

I saw a few of these in the parking lot of a local shopping center. At first I thought they were tridents but upon further inspection the leaf is way different. Anyone have any idea what type of maple this is? It’s absolutely loaded with seed right now.

 

[Mikecheck123]

Looks like a trident leaf to me. They have huge variations and there are several cultivars.

Was the bark flaky? That's usually a good way to distinguish from red maples, whose leaves can look awfully tridenty at times.

 

[rockm]

It's a trident. Rough bark, trilobed leaves and location in the shopping center--tridents are a favorite of some developers. Tridents have a wide variety of ;leaf variations.

Acer buergerianum (Three-toothed Maple, Trident Maple) | North Carolina Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox

 

[Shibui]

Trident maple.
Trident has different shaped leaves depending on age and size. All my landscape tridents are from the same stock as my bonsai but the larger garden trees now have longer, spade shaped leaves like the picture. May be the difference between adult foliage and juvenile. Pruning bonsai probably keeps them perpetually as juvenile leaf.
Collect some seed in fall and grow seedlings next spring. You'll find the seedlings have similar leaves to those you are familiar with on bonsai.

 

[rollwithak]

Trident Maple

 

[19Mateo83]

Thank you! I was hoping it was trident. I’m guessing tridents drop their seeds in the fall? This sucker is absolutely LOADED

 

[Shibui]

Thank you! I was hoping it was trident. I’m guessing tridents drop their seeds in the fall? This sucker is absolutely LOADED

Tridents are certainly fecund. Trees here always produce a load of seed and we end up with thousands of seedlings in the garden beds every spring.
Seed ripens in fall. Seed tends to hang on the trees even after the leaves drop and the large bunches make it very easy to pick.
Take a look around the parking area to see if you can spot seedlings. Seeds can blow some distance on the wind and grow very easily so there's likely to be some seedlings growing in nearby garden beds, cracks in pavement, behind buildings, etc depending how diligent the maintenance guys are. This year's seedlings will only be a few inches tall by now but there may be some older ones growing through those adjacent bushes.
Pulling seedlings saves the hassle of germinating seeds and will put you a year ahead anyway.

 

[19Mateo83]

Tridents are certainly fecund. Trees here always produce a load of seed and we end up with thousands of seedlings in the garden beds every spring.
Seed ripens in fall. Seed tends to hang on the trees even after the leaves drop and the large bunches make it very easy to pick.
Take a look around the parking area to see if you can spot seedlings. Seeds can blow some distance on the wind and grow very easily so there's likely to be some seedlings growing in nearby garden beds, cracks in pavement, behind buildings, etc depending how diligent the maintenance guys are. This year's seedlings will only be a few inches tall by now but there may be some older ones growing through those adjacent bushes.
Pulling seedlings saves the hassle of germinating seeds and will put you a year ahead anyway.

Nice, I didn’t even think about scouting around for seedlings. Good call!

 

[ajm55555]

This works great:

PlantNet Plant Identification - Apps on Google Play

Observation and help for the identification of wild plants

play.google.com

‎PlantNet

‎Pl@ntNet is an application that allows you to identify plants simply by photographing them with your smartphone. Very useful when you don't have a botanist on hand! Pl@ntNet is also a great citizen science project: all the plants you photograph are collected and analysed by scientists around...

apps.apple.com