Is Sugar Maple A Hardwood Or A Softwood

Photograph to the one of sugar maple presented earlier and you ll quickly no tice that the sugar maple pores are more widely scattered.

Is sugar maple a hardwood or a softwood. This is something to notice but by itself the pore spacing has no diagnostic value. Botanical difference between hardwood and softwood gymnosperms and angiosperms image. Sugar maple large tree in the soapberry family sapindaceae native to eastern north america and widely grown as an ornamental and shade tree. Pine is a softwood and thusly not near as strong or dense a maple.

Janka ratings for maple range from 700 for silver maple to 1 180 for black maple. All of which are hardwoods because maple trees have leaves. The maple tree is a member of a group of 200 species of trees and shrubs worldwide that belong to the acer family. The term hardwood and softwood refers to the type of leaves the tree has.

Maple is the hardest of those woods. The wood of soft maple is not as heavy or as strong as that of hard maple. Oak is a hardwood also but not a dense as maple. All maples are hardwoods but the species found in america are further classified as hard or soft maples.

The most common hard maple is the sugar or rock maple. The general designation of hardwood vs softwood is do they shed their leaves in the fall so maple is a hardwood. Maple comes in many varieties rock silver sugar hard soft etc. The specific gravities of sugar maple and black maple are 0 63 and 0 57 respectively.

Typically hard maple is most often known as sugar maple. Now it may look like hard maple is heads and tails above the rest and to a certain extent it is but for reference black cherry has a janka hardness of 950 lb f the same as red maple and black walnut is rated at 1 010 lb f also note that black maple not pictured isn t quite as hard as its close relative hard maple and ranks in the mid range with a hardness of 1 180 lb f. Bigleaf maple is moderately hard. Wikimedia commons coming to the reproductive description in botanical terms softwood trees are gymnosperms whereas hardwood trees are angiosperms the seeds of hardwood trees will have a shell or a fruit.

Summary to decide whether the sample you re looking at is a hardwood or a softwood look for the presence of vessels pores. Maple trees are one of the most common species of hardwoods in north american forests. Silver maple red maple and boxelder are soft maples. Wood from broad leaved deciduous trees is hardwood.