Norway Maple Identification (Acer platanoides)

Check the leaf shape, twig pattern, flowers, and paired seeds on Acer platanoides.

• Leaves are opposite on the twigs and usually 4-7 inches (10-18 cm) wide.
• Each leaf is simple, broad, and palm-shaped with 5-7 pointed lobes and a few large teeth.
• Flowers appear in upright clusters; each flower is small, yellow-green, and has five petals.
• The fruit is a paired samara with broad wings that spread nearly flat, close to 180 degrees.

Use several of these features together for a more confident visual check.

Acer platanoides shows useful visual shifts from seedling structure to flowers and fruit.

• Seedling: Seedlings show a slender stem with opposite first leaves; later leaves quickly become shallowly lobed, establishing the species’ paired leaf arrangement early.
• Young plant: Young plants form a narrow upright outline with smooth gray bark and larger, clearly palmate leaves, often 4-7 inches (10-18 cm) across.
• Flowering stage: Flowering branches carry upright clusters of yellow-green flowers before full leaf expansion, making the crown look dotted with small, dense corymbs.
• Fruiting stage: Fruiting crowns display paired winged samaras set widely apart in a broad angle, hanging in clusters and remaining more visually conspicuous than the flowers.

Norway Maple has several named forms that are easy to separate by foliage color or crown shape.

• 'Crimson King': Leaves emerge and remain deep purple to maroon through most of the season, instead of plain green.
• 'Drummondii': Leaves have broad creamy white margins, giving a distinctly variegated canopy unlike the typical solid green form.
• 'Columnare': The crown is narrow and upright, often only about 15 to 25 feet (4.5 to 7.5 m) wide on a much taller tree.
• 'Globosum': Forms a dense, rounded crown on a short trunk, usually staying much smaller and more ball-shaped than the species.

In spring, Norway Maple is easy to spot when clusters of yellow-green flowers open before or with the leaves. The leaves soon expand broad and bright green. By fall, the canopy turns clear yellow, then drops to reveal opposite branching and large pointed buds through winter. Paired winged samaras often hang on into late summer or early fall.

Several maples are often mistaken for Norway maple.

Acer platanoides is native across much of Europe and west into parts of western Asia. In its natural range, it occurs in mixed deciduous woodland, forest edges, ravines, and streamside woods rather than in bogs, alpine zones, or dry open grassland. That setting helps with identification because a maple matching this species in lowland woodland or along settled roadsides in Europe is more likely to be Acer platanoides than a species tied to mountains, wetlands, or strongly acidic heath habitats.