Red maple, Acer rubrum L., (Aceraceae), like the other maples this tree will give sap from January to April. Best time is after a cold morning start, sunny day with rising temperatures.  Reed shoots were used as taps, they are hollow, easy to find.

Sap may be boiled away or iced away.  Icing away requires the sap be frozen and the less dense water that forms the ice over the top of the container is removed, increasing the sugar concentration in the remaining water.

The wing-like seed pods may be cooked and candied, eaten.

Sugar or Hard Maple Leaf   "Canada. Oh Canada..."

Big Leaf Maple, Acer macrophylum Pursh.

Native American Food: Sap tapped and drunk right from the tree, also boiled down into syrup, dried into candy.  Raw sap considered a spring tonic.  Seeds were cooked and eaten.  Salish people ate cambium mixed with fat.  Young shoots (sprouts) of tree cooked and eaten.  Seeds can be dried and sprouted, bitter fair, but palatable. Leaves used in pit cooking, enclosed and flavored food:  seal, whale, porpoise. Leaves also used to line boxes for ripening salmon eggs.

Medicine:  To treat tuberculosis bark was infused and taken; Kwakiutl mixed sap of buds with animal oil and used on hair.

Wood used in canoe construction, to make paddles; good fire wood; used for smoking salmon; integral to house construction of Cahuilla people.  Inner bark used for making food preparation and cleaning utensils:  whisks; spoons, dishes. Ritual masks, rattles and other ritual items carved from the wood.Wood stripped to make baskets.