Alternate name: Ashleaf Maple
Family: Aceraceae, Maple view all from this family
Description Small to medium-sized tree with short trunk and broad, rounded crown of light green foliage.
Height: 30-60' (9-18 m).
Diameter: 2 1/2' (0.8 m).
Leaves: opposite; pinnately compound; 6" (15 cm) long; with slender axis. 3-7 leaflets sometimes slightly lobed, 2-4" (5-10 cm) long, 1-1 1/2" (2.5-4 cm) wide; paired and short-stalked (except at end); ovate or elliptical, long-pointed at tip, short-pointed at base; coarsely saw-toothed, sometimes lobed. Light green and mostly hairless above, paler and varying in hairiness beneath; turning yellow (or sometimes red) in autumn.
Bark: light gray-brown; with many narrow ridges and fissures, becoming deeply furrowed.
Twigs: green, often whitish or purplish; slender, ringed at nodes, mostly hairless.
Flowers: 3/16" (5 mm) long; with very small yellow-green calyx of 5 lobes or sepals; several clustered on slender drooping stalks; male and female on separate trees; before leaves in early spring.
Fruit: 1-1 1/2" (2.5-4 cm) long; paired, slightly forking keys with flat narrow body and long, curved wing, pale yellow, 1-seeded; maturing in summer and remaining attached in winter.
Habitat Wet or moist soils along stream banks and in valleys, with various hardwoods; also naturalized in waste places and roadsides.
Range S. Alberta east to extreme S. Ontario and New York, south to central Florida, and west to S. Texas; also scattered from New Mexico to California and naturalized in New England; to 8000' (2438 m) in the Southwest.
Discussion Box Elder is classed with maples, having similar, paired key fruits, but is easily distinguishable by the pinnately compound leaves. Hardy and fast-growing, it is planted for shade and shelterbelts but is short-lived and easily broken in storms. Common and widely distributed, it is spreading in the East as a weed tree. Plains Indians made sugar from the sap. The common name indicates the resemblance of the foliage to that of elders (Sambucus) and the whitish wood to that of Box (Buxus sempervirens L.).
