Red Maple Flowers

     I have been seeing beautiful red maple tree flowers blooming abundantly in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania's bottomland woods, and suburban areas, in the last few days.  Every year, red maples in this area begin to bloom any time from mid-March to late March, depending on the weather.  The flowers develop before the leaves do, making those blooms stand out against the still-gray bark of deciduous trees.  And those multitudes of striking, red blossoms are pleasing to see, particularly against a blue sky, and when a few purple grackles, American robins or a pair of eastern bluebirds are perched among them.
     Red maple flowers reach their peak of blooming when silver maple tree blooms and pussy willow catkins are fading.  Red maple blossoms are prevalent in moist woods and suburbs when hepatica and crocuses are also blooming.  And red maples bloom when wood frogs and spotted salamanders are finishing their spawning in woodland pools of rain water and snow melt and spring peepers and American toads are starting their ancient calling and spawning in wooded swamps dominated by red canopies of red maple flowers.      
     Red maple trees are well-named because several parts of them are red.  Red maples have red buds and twigs in winter.  They sport red flowers in spring.  In summer, they have red petioles and seeds.  And they are covered with red foliage in autumn.  But their bark is always pale-gray, and smooth on young trees.
     Red maples are adaptable trees, living from sea level to about 3,000 feet up mountain slopes in the eastern half of the Lower 48 of the United States.  They are pioneer trees, colonizing bare ground, particularly where the soil is moist.  Red maples are commonly planted on lawns because of their lovely shapes, the shade they offer in summer and their strikingly red flowers and autumn leaves.  
     Some red maple trees are male and some are female.  The flowers of each have five small petals and droop in clusters from the tips of twigs.  Female blooms are larger and droopier.  Male blossoms have yellow anthers, the part of the stamens where pollen is produced.  Pollen is carried on the wind and by bees to the female flowers that produce the red, winged seeds.  
     Maple trees furnish food for a variety of wildlife in a year's time.  White-tailed deer, cottontail rabbits, snowshoe hares and beavers are some of the mammal's that eat their twigs, buds and bark.  A small variety of squirrels and mice consume their winged seeds.  The seeds' wings carry them on the wind to distant places where they might take root.  
     Red maple trees are beautiful throughout the year, but especially in spring with red flowers and fall with red foliage.  And those blooms and leaves are made the more lovely when seen against blue skies and when birds are perched among maple branches.