Maple Seeds Photo by Robert Muller
Recently a friend remarked, “There are not many spinners this year.” I was puzzled until I realized my friend was talking about maple seeds. When I was a kid we called them propellers or helicopters. I took an informal Facebook poll asking what people called them and they added “Whirligigs” or “Whirligiggers” and appropriately “pain in the butt”. Technically, it is a samara that is defined as “a winged fruit that does not split open.” Elms, Maples, and Ashes have samaras.
Michigan has six native species of Maples (seven if you recognize Black Maple as distinct from Sugar Maple). The non-native Norway Maple (Acer platanoides) is a too common escaped species.
Silver Maple
Silver Maples (A.sarrharinum) and Red Maples (A. rubrum) have the best spinners. Silver Maple samaras are 3-6cm (1 ¼ to 2 ½ inch) long and the pair forms a widely diverging angle although often only one seed fully develops.
Red Maple
Red Maple samaras are smaller 1-2.5cm (1/2 to 1 inch) long and the pair is more V-shaped. Often they are reddish. Sugar Maple (A. saccharum) pairs are U-shaped with the samara almost parallel to each other.
Boxelder L- dried seeds in winter R-fresh seeds
Boxelder (A. negundo) has V-shaped pairs and will sometimes hang on the tree all winter. Norway Maples have samara pairs widely spaced so the pairs are almost straight across.
Striped Maple or Moosewood
Mountain Maple (A. spicatum) and Striped Maple also called Moosewood (A. pensylvanicum) have seeds in branched clusters called racemes. Mountain Maple has seeds approximately 1cm (3/8 inch) long. In Striped Maple the seeds are 2cm (3/4 inch) long. I seldom need to identify maples solely from their seeds. All of these species have other useful characteristics to help determine their identity.
Thanks to Robert Muller for the use of his photo showing the seed of the four species.
Copyright 2015 by Donald Drife
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I was surprised about the comment, “not many spinners this year”. My local silver maples were LOADED (unfortunately) this year. Also, my silver’s look stressed; and it’s not just mine as I’ve noticed other silver maple’s foliage appears “thin”. Anybody else notice anything like that? Ron G.
This person commented before the main dropping of samaras. Many of the trees I see look as if they are all seeds and no leaves. In Royal Oak it is a bumper crop this year.
I should have added location … near Dexter, Mi.
Sept 1, 2015
I live in Portland Oregon, and from your pictures, it looks like we have Norway Maples… I think.
Anyway, LOTS of seeds this year — BUT THEY WON’T SPIN.
I’ve tried everywhere in my neighborhood — I’ll expand my “scientific study” 🙂
farther afield on my bike — but so far, NOT A SINGLE SPINNER.
THEY’RE DROPPING STRAIGHT TO THE GROUND.
I find this… disturbing.
I Googled for any maple tree/seed connection, and all I found was that if the tree is stressed, it’ll produce more seeds; if it lacks pollinators, or is less stressed, less seeds.
But it seems to me that the very structure of the seed is different this year, so the balance is “off”, and it won’t spin…?
Freaked out in Portland —
Win
Norway Maple seeds are poor spinners. You are correct, they are weighted wrong, but they are weighted wrong all the time. Silver and Red Maple seeds are the best at spinning. It is also hard to get Sugar Maples to spin. Sorry I did not make this clearer in my post.