| No, acer saccharinum is silver maple, sugar maple is acer saccharum (I translate loosely as "sweet maple" and "sugar maple" from the Latin.) (Oops - almost sent out the wrong thing, as my computer "corrected" saccharum to saccharin). Silver maple likes to live along river banks and other wet places, although I've seen it in plenty of back yards, as well. It grows faster than sugar maple, but has softer wood and is more likely to lose big pieces in a storm -- don't plant it where it overhangs your house. It's very pretty in the summer, with it's silvery leaves, but has less brilliant fall foliage than most maples, usually just an ordinary yellow. Wikipedia says it grows 25' to 50' wide, which sounds about right. It's a little more upright than Sugar maple, in my experience, although it will lean to follow the sun. As for whether 16 trees will give you enough sap, it depends what you are using it for. When I was a kid the next door neighbor made sap from a single sugar maple every year. I doubt it made a lot of syrup, but they enjoyed it. Ginda Fisher eastern MA, zone 6 On May 8, 2010, at 4:05 PM, Richard Harrison wrote:
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