Wood: Sugar and black maple wood is sold as hard maple wood and ranks with oak and black walnut in terms of commercial importance. The wood is hard, heavy, strong and shock-resistant and used for flooring, furniture, cabinets, veneer, musical instruments, bowling alleys and billiard cues. The sap is tapped in late winter and boiled down to yield maple syrup.
Wildlife: Deer browse the young growth and grouse eat the buds.
Horticulture: Planted in well-drained,
fertile soil, the black maple is an ideal large shade tree and is better
suited to Iowa's hot, dry summers than is the sugar maple. This species
tolerates moister soils and grows more slowly when young than sugar maple,
and where their growing areas overlap, some hybridization may occur between
the species.
