Leaf guide › Maples
Bigleaf maple
Acer macrophyllum
The big maple of the West Coast, with leaves that can be a foot across, turning the lowland forests of the Pacific Northwest gold.
- Fall color
- YellowOrange
- Turns
- Mid to late
- Leaves
- Opposite (in pairs)
- Size
- 6–12 in. across
- Found in
- Pacific Northwest, California
How to recognize it
- Huge leaves, usually 6 to 12 inches across and sometimes much bigger, the largest of any maple.
- Five deep lobes, cut about halfway to the center, with blunt, rounded tips and a few big wavy teeth.
- Long, stout leaf stems, often nearly as long as the leaf is wide.
- In wet western forests, the trunk and branches are often wrapped in thick moss and ferns.
- The winged seeds come in pairs, and the seed end is covered in stiff, bristly hairs.
Where to find it
Look for it in lowland forests west of the Cascades, along streams and rivers, in city parks, and in canyons and foothills from British Columbia down through California. It often grows mixed in with Douglas fir and western red cedar, where its gold stands out against the dark conifers.
Easy to confuse with
Worth knowing
Bigleaf maple is the only large native maple in most of the Pacific Northwest, and in the region’s damp forests it’s one of the main sources of fall color. Its wood, especially the rippled, figured kind, is prized for guitars and furniture, and like sugar maple it can be tapped for syrup.
Common questions
What color does bigleaf maple turn in fall?
Bigleaf maple turns yellow to golden orange. In a dry fall or after an early storm, the leaves can go brown before they color.
When does bigleaf maple change color?
Mid to late in the season. Around Puget Sound and in western Oregon, it usually colors from mid-October into early November.
How can you tell bigleaf maple from Norway maple?
Size is the quickest clue: bigleaf maple leaves are usually 6 to 12 inches across, with deep cuts between five blunt lobes. Norway maple leaves are 4 to 7 inches across, with shallow notches and fine, pointed teeth.
Where does bigleaf maple grow?
In the lower 48, it grows in the Pacific Northwest and California, mostly west of the Cascades and in the Coast Ranges and Sierra Nevada foothills.
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