Heavy, hard, dense and durable finely porous maple wood has a beautiful pattern with narrow dark core rays, which gives it a special decorative effect. Maple wood was used in carpentry for the production of bent furniture, musical instruments, mathematical instruments, skis, gun stocks. Bowling pins and baseball bats are made from sugar maple.

When dried, maple board is quite stable, mainly when used for interior decoration. Maple wood material can be easily processed, polished, painted and stained or varnished without any problems.

The main industry of using maple wood is interior decoration and furniture manufacturing. It is most often used as a contrasting tree in the form of edgings and finishing rails. Today, maple wood is used for interior decoration of high-quality furniture.

In the furniture industry, maple is used in the form of lumber or veneer. Maple parquet is very valuable and has a high resistance to abrasion.

Maple edged board is characterized by an attractive texture of pinkish or yellowish tint. Lumber from this tree perfectly holds fasteners (nails, shurpas) - according to this indicator, they are not inferior to such hardwoods as ash, oak, beech.

Laminate Maple perfectly emphasizes the natural natural color of wood. Light, in some places even light brown basic tone is crossed by thin dark veins. This pattern visually expands the space, giving it a feeling of lightness and sophistication. The room in which such a laminate is laid will look much lighter and fresher.

Areas of application for maple

Among hardwoods, maple wood is considered one of the most valuable. Masters have long treated her with respect. For example, the Trojan horse known from Greek mythology was made by the Greeks from maple. Its use is limited only by low biostability and a tendency to discoloration. The last drawback is removed by using various mordants and stains.

Maple wood is used to make furniture. Well dried, it exhibits good shape and dimensional stability indoors, which is why one of its most popular products is countertops, particularly for restaurants and cafes. Together with other valuable rocks, it is used for inlays as contrasting details. It combines well with oak and fruit trees(cherry, pear, apple tree), it combines well with beech, if the parts from these species do not directly adjoin. Combines with metal and glass details.

Sliced ​​maple veneer is widely used to finish parts from less valuable species. Wavy texture, maple burl veneer and bird's eye texture are especially appreciated.

Maple parquet is especially valued for its high hardness and wear resistance. American sugar maple is used for floors in dance halls, bowling alleys, etc.

Maple is very good for the manufacture of stairs and details of interior decoration of rooms.

Veneer and maple wood itself are used for finishing and making musical instruments - percussion, wind and strings - due to their high resonant properties. Some of the details of their famous violins (for example, the lower decks) were made by the great masters from Cremona Andrei Amati, Antonio Stradivari, Giuseppe Guarneri from maple wood. Maple is an excellent carving material. It has a high resistance to chipping, so very thin cuts can be made on its wood, and the cuts are clear, clean and smooth, with a soft glossy sheen. Moreover, they can be done in any direction, almost without fear of chips. Maple was widely used for crafts and kitchen utensils - spoons, ladles, carved and chiseled vessels. Oars, tool handles, pads of hand planers, measuring and drawing tools are made from it.

scientific classification Physical Properties
Domain: eukaryotes Average density: sycamore 623 kg/m³

Norway maple 653 kg/m³
Kingdom: Plants Density limits: sycamore 530-790 kg/m³

Norway maple 560-810 kg/m³
Department: Flowering Longitudinal shrinkage: 0,4-0,5 %
Class: Dicotyledonous Radial shrinkage: sycamore 3.3-4.4%

Norway maple 3.2-4.9%
Order: Sapindoflora Tangential shrinkage: sycamore 8.0-8.5%

Norway maple 8.4-9.0%
Family: Sapindaceae Flexural strength: Norway maple 114-137 N/mm²
Genus: Compressive strength: sycamore 82 N/mm²

Norway maple 100-155 N/mm²
International scientific name Strength limit: sycamore 58 N/mm²

Norway maple 59-62 N/mm²

Acer L., 1753

 Thermal conductivity: sycamore 0.16-0.18 W/km

Norway maple 0.14 W/km
type view Fuel Properties

Acer pseudoplatanus L.— Yavor

 3.75 to 4.1 kWh/kg

Maple species

Four species grow in the European part of Russia:

  • Maple Tatar ( Acer tataricum L.),
  • Maple white, or pseudoplane tree ( Acer pseudoplatanus L.),
  • Field maple ( Acer campestre L.) - is listed in the Red Book of the Moscow Region, through which the northern border of its range passes,
  • Norway maple ( Acer platanoides L.),

of which only the last species is widely distributed (to the north - up to 62 °).

On Far East Russia meet:

  • Small-leaved maple ( Acer mono),
  • River Maple ( Acer ginnala),
  • False sibold maple ( Acer pseudosieboldianum),
  • Maple-birch or Maple yellow ( Acer ukurunduense) - in Primorye and the Amur region,
  • Green maple ( Acer tegmentosum) and
  • Maple Manchurian ( Acer mandshuricum) - mainly in Primorye,
  • Japanese maple ( Acer japonicum) - in the Kuriles (Kunashir),
  • Maple bearded ( Acer barbinerve Max.),
  • Maple Chonosky ( Acer tschonoskii Max.) - the south of the Sakhalin region, in Primorye its subspecies of Komarov's maple grows,
  • Maple palmate ( Acer palmatum Thunb.) - in the Primorsky Territory, a microsybold maple was found, close to palmate maple and considered by a number of scientists as part of the latter.

In Crimea, only:

  • Acer campestre L.,
  • Acer value Lauth.(Acer opulifolium Vill.),
  • Acer platanoides L.,
  • Steven Maple ( Acer stevenii Pojark).

The Caucasus is very rich in maple species - in addition to those listed above European species, also found here:

  • Maple Trautfetter, or alpine (Acer trautvetteri Medw.)
  • Acer velutinum Boiss.- in Russia, the species is not recorded,
  • Acer hyrcanum Fisch. et C.A. Mey.- Azerbaijan and Dagestan,
  • Montpellier maple (Acer monspessulanumL.),
  • Colchis maple ( Acer cappadocicumGled.),
  • Maple Sosnowski (Acer sosnowskyi Doluch.) is included in the Red Book of the Krasnodar Territory.

Useful tables

Shrinkage

Voltage

Mechanical properties

Basically, maple in the parquet is divided into two types: European and Canadian. Initially, their color is almost identical, but over time, the European maple becomes more yellow, and the Canadian maple “leaves” in pinkish. The difference in performance is that Canadian Maple is much stronger, which is why it is often referred to as "Canadian Hard Maple".

European maple parquet is actually forbidden to use with systems warm floor, because this wood reacts quickly to changes in temperature and humidity conditions. Canadian maple is more stable and stable.

There are many references to maple in our literature and poetry. And the fallen, icy Yeseninsky, and that old maple that knocks on the window in the song, and the ditty - the canopy was made of it - new, maple. But maple is not only a Russian literary tree, it is much more famous for its Canadian relatives. I even defined my leaflet for the state Canadian flag. Of course, sugar maple as a substitute for our beet and Central American cane sugar is hardly of interest to us. Maple syrup is American food, molasses we call it, nothing special. But the properties of the wood of this plant delight the inhabitants of any continent.

Botanists distinguish about 150 types of maple - from small "thin" shrubs 3-5 meters high to mighty trees about fifteen fathoms and a girth of six arshins. Only five species are of value as “commodity wood”, the botanical names of which in Latin hardly make sense to list. In a speech understandable to consumers, they are more often called sugar, silver, large-leaved, red and black maples. Trees can be up to half a millennium old.

They differ in the properties of wood and areas of use. Hardwoods - sugar and black - have strong, straight-fiber and fine-grained wood. The density of these species is about 0.7-0.6 g / cm³ (in dried form), silver, large-leaved and red maples have a lower density and significantly lower hardness. Accordingly, hardness also ranges from 3.3 to 4.8 units on the Brinell scale. At the same time, maple dries easily, except perhaps for sugar - but these are the problems of Canadians.

Despite the low hardness and density, certain problems sometimes arise in the processing of maple - either the saws begin to "sing", or there is a negative vibration during jointing - but the problems are solvable, and the wood craftsmen cope with them. Perhaps they are connected precisely with the musical properties of maple - after all, it has long played various harps and violins.

Maple belongs to sapwood, its wood is light to white, may have a pinkish or yellowish tint, and has an iridescent sheen. The annual layers on the transverse section are separated by dark stripes, and narrow heart-shaped rays are visible at the end. In a radial cut, these beams form a mosaic of spots and ribbons that give the wood a special silky texture. This “pockmarking” is especially well seen on radial spalls — when it is illuminated from different sides, a shimmering iridescent sheen is visible. In the tangential section, the rays form a kind of lentils, and in the transverse they look like narrow stripes.

The pattern of maple wood can be different - streaky-silvery, curlicue, bubbly or similar to a "bird's eye". Sometimes a maple has a “false core” - if the core is colored greenish gray, then this indicates a fungal infection of the wood. Sometimes in lots of softwood maple comes across ash-leaved maple - a species that is much worse in quality, its wood is much softer than other species. The use of wood of this type is usually limited to the manufacture of containers and building structures.

Maple lends itself well to painting and varnishing, it can be glued and polished. It is quite difficult to drive a nail or screw a screw into this wood, but it is also not easy to pull them out - they hold firmly. Good for chiselling, turning and planing.

Hardwoods are mostly used for the manufacture of parquet and solid floor boards, since they are subject to increased requirements for strength and wear resistance. The most typical use of maple wood of all kinds is: flooring, furniture, musical instruments (string boards and percussion mechanisms of pianos and grand pianos), sports equipment, bowling alley equipment and dairy production. They even make decks for chopping meat, carpentry tools, various turning products, veneer and plywood from maple.

In Russian national tradition maple was given an important place. It was from it that the comb necessary for combing the linen tow was made - they cut up to two hundred teeth, carefully polished them and impregnated them with linen drying oil for strength. Evidence of this is an old Russian riddle: “I am sitting on a linden tree, looking through a maple tree and shaking a birch tree.” Our contemporary is unlikely to be able to find the correct answer. In fact, this is a spinning wheel - each part of it was made from a certain type of wood. The seat for the spinner - the bottom - was made of linden, the comb (we talked about this above) from maple, and the spindle on which the finished yarn was wound was made from birch.

Due to the special homogeneity of the structure, maple wood conducts sound in a special way, so it was used (and is still being used) for soundboards of musical instruments and even for making especially sonorous variety wooden spoons! Other folk instruments cannot do without it - shepherd's pipes and pity pipes. Maple is also associated with obscure sometimes for modern man an epic mention of "spring guselki". Our ancestors made a psaltery, hollowing out the body from a single piece of straight-grained spruce or pine, and on top they put a deck - a thin plank made of white maple, or sycamore maple. Gradually, the name yarvichatye in folk speech was transformed into yarovchatye - and this is how the combination of the words “yarovchaty guseli”, incomprehensible to our contemporaries, turned out.

In places of forks - and there are enough of them on the maple trunk - the wood has a special serpentine structure, such fragments of the trunk are called "gafel" - which means pitchfork in Dutch, bifurcation - came from the name of the element of the mast of sailing ships. The sliced ​​veneer obtained from these maple fragments is used in intarsia and furniture production.

Maple is also used for details of fine modeling in woodcarving, the manufacture of skis and gun stocks, as well as billiard cues. It is also used in woodcuts - as an alternative to imported "palms".

In addition to using maple wood, the sap of the Canadian sugar maple is used to extract maple sugar and maple syrup, an essential ingredient in many American dishes. The Indians also began to produce sweet juice, and the settlers adopted this technology from them, making evaporated maple juice a national American product. Raw materials for making syrup and sugar are obtained by "leaking" maples - just as we do with birch when birch sap is taken from it. A mature maple produces over a hundred liters of sweet juice during the spring.

The sophistication of the shape of the leaves and the amazing range of colors determine the demand for maple in landscape design. Its leaves are often painted in bright pink and purple colors in spring, in summer they are not entirely green, but are whitish and pinkish. The autumn palette includes all shades of brown, yellow and red.


The wood is white, with a yellowish or reddish tinge. Annual layers are poorly visible. Core rays are visible only on strictly radial cuts (splits). Silver birch wood is characterized by relatively high strength and hardness.

Birch

Birch got its name from the white bark (in Indo-European languages, the root "ber" means "light, clear"). The total number of species is about a hundred.

The wood is white, with a yellowish or reddish tint. Annual layers are poorly visible. Core rays are visible only on strictly radial cuts (splits). Silver birch wood is characterized by relatively high strength, hardness, impact strength, but low resistance to decay. The hardness of birch wood at standard humidity (12%) is about 670 kg/m3.

Iron birch wood in density and strength is 1.5 times, and in hardness 2.5 times greater than the wood of drooping and downy birches. Wood birch yellow, black and stone also has higher rates of physical and mechanical properties.

Two species are most widespread and important: drooping or warty birch, so named because of the warts on young shoots, and downy birch, which got its name because of the pubescent shoots and leaves.

The wood of drooping and downy birches finds a variety of uses (peeled veneer for plywood, gun stocks, skis, building parts, boards, cellulose, parquet, furfural, raw materials for pyrolysis and charcoal burning, etc.). Karelian birch and burl wood is used as a decorative material. Iron birch wood is used in mechanical engineering. Birch wood is beautifully toned, opening up almost unlimited design possibilities.

To obtain large, good ornamental material, birch is cut down at 60-80 and even sometimes at 100 years of age; for firewood, which is considered the best fuel, it is suitable already in 40-60 years. Birch is of little use for buildings, as it soon rots due to the development of the fungus Nyctomyces suaveolens (with the smell of violets).

Heavy dense birch wood is quite durable, well resists splitting. It is used for the manufacture of high-quality plywood, skis, small carved toys.

The so-called burl is considered a valuable ornamental material - large growths on trunks, large branches, roots. A cut of the build-up gives a complex and beautiful pattern, which is why it is used to make cigarette cases, boxes and other elegant products.

Modern craftsmen pay little attention to birch wood as a material for the manufacture of artistic products. Meanwhile, it is well polished, painted, easily processed with tools, bends well in a steamed state.

Beech

Beech (lat. Fágus) is a genus of deciduous trees of the Beech family. The family contains 8 genera and about 100 species. The most famous in the Northern Hemisphere are 3 species - beech, oak and chestnut.

Beeches grow up to 350 years, most intensively at the age of 40-100 years. Life expectancy is over 500 years. Refers to wind-resistant breeds.

Beech wood is white with a yellowish or reddish tint. The annual layers are clearly visible. The core rays are wide, on the radial section they look like shiny stripes, and on the tangential section they look like brown lenticels, creating a characteristic mottled pattern. Older trees sometimes have reddish-brown mature wood ("red core"). This does not affect the quality of the wood; on the contrary, such trees are especially valued by cabinetmakers, but they are quite rare. Beech wood, steamed in a special way, takes on a more pronounced red-brown color.

Beech belongs to the species with high uniform density. The number of annual layers per 1 cm of the cross section of the forest beech is 4.5 and percentage late wood - 30%. The microroughnesses remaining after processing the surface of beech wood, like many other scattered vascular species, are 30-100 microns, which is approximately two times lower than that of oak.

Freshly cut beech wood has a moisture content of about 80%. The maximum humidity at water absorption - 120%. Beech, like oak, is a highly drying species. Beech wood is less prone to warping and cracking during the drying process than oak wood. Beech belongs to the species of medium density. The density of beech wood is 670 kgm3. Hardness (according to Brinell) 3.7 - 3.9.

In terms of long-term resistance to deformations, beech is practically not inferior to oak, as well as in another indicator - the ability to hold fasteners. Beech has, perhaps, the highest bending ability, which was widely used in the production of bent furniture. In terms of resistance to rotting (biological damage), beech (ripe wood) is classified as medium-resistant species (it is noticeably inferior to heartwood of pine and especially oak), and sapwood is classified as low-resistant. Compared to oak, beech wood is lighter and more often affected by fungi, more actively absorbs moisture from the air. This explains the limitations placed on the use of beech for the exterior of houses. Beech wood is well processed, perfectly finished, accepts various paints and varnishes, stains and stains.

Beech wood has always been valued by furniture makers for its rich texture and good workability. However, most great popularity Austrian furniture maker Michael Thonet provided beech products. His bent Viennese chair (chair no. 14), made mainly of beech, set a record that is unlikely to ever be broken. During the period from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the First World War, over 50 million pieces of such chairs were produced around the world.

Elegant beech parquet gives the room a discreet and noble atmosphere. A light pinkish tint evokes feelings of warmth. The simple and noble structure of this flooring is the perfect finishing touch to any interior. True, there are some peculiarities. The color scheme of beech wood is quite diverse - from pink to white. To remove this coloration and give the wood a more uniform shade, as well as make it more stable, beech requires pre-steaming. If this is not done, the texture of the wood will be very colorful. In time, this procedure takes about three days.

Due to its high wear resistance, beech is widely used for the manufacture of wooden stairs. The pleasant warm tone of beech wood is the reason why it is often used for separate small items: tool handles, etc. From Beech, excellent sliced ​​veneer is obtained, especially from large assortments, and it is used for finishing. Barrels are also made of beech (albeit less often than oak), mainly due to its strength and ability to bend easily.

Cherry

The density of cherry wood is 610 kg/m3. Cherry heartwood varies in color from rich red to red-brown, darkens with age and fades when exposed to sunlight. In contrast, the sapwood is creamy white. The wood is uniform, straight-grained, satiny, smooth in texture, and may have natural inclusions of brown flesh flecks and small resin grooves.

Cherry is easy to machine, use nails, stick together well. Being well polished and stained, it lends itself perfectly to smooth polishing. It dries fairly quickly with a relatively high shrinkage rate, yet retains dimensional stability after kiln drying.

The wood is medium-density, bends well, has a low stiffness index and average strength and impact resistance characteristics.

The main uses of cherry wood are fine furniture, cabinets, interior decoration, kitchen cabinets, wall paneling, block parquet, solid board, doors, ship interiors, musical instruments, turnery, and woodcarving.

Like all fruit trees, cherry belongs to the Rosaceae family.

Cherry makes up 3.9% of all types of industrial hardwood. The first printers used cherries to make printing plates.

Siberian cedar

The average moisture content of Siberian cedar in a freshly cut state is 109%. Maximum humidity at water absorption - 220%. Along with spruce and fir, cedar has the highest acoustic constant, which allows it to be successfully used for making musical instruments.

Siberian cedar wood is soft, light and easy to work in all directions. In terms of physical and mechanical properties, it occupies an intermediate position between spruce and fir wood, but exceeds them in resistance to decay. The ability to hold fasteners is 15-20% worse than that of pine. The density of Siberian cedar wood is 420 kg/m3.

Siberian cedar wood is resistant to moisture, temperature changes and, thanks to essential oils, is not afraid of insects.

The range of raw materials that can be obtained from cedar is very wide. Its wood is used for the manufacture of pencils, battery veneer, turning and joinery. It has a rather beautiful texture and color, is well processed and has a persistent pleasant smell. Of the Siberian conifers, only it is suitable for the manufacture of containers for food products. Siberian melted butter, widely known in the past, was transported in barrels made of cedar staves. Omul barrels were made from it. With cedar barrels for Siberian oil, not everything is so simple, in a certain sense it was the smuggling of valuable wood. Condition of delivery in cedar barrels- the initiative of the German buyer. The condition was set that the oil was exported only in cedar containers, and the thickness of cedar boards was at least doubled in relation to standard containers. Upon delivery, the containers were not returned, the barrels were riveted, and the Siberian cedar wood was used for the production of musical instruments. So the oil here, most likely, has nothing to do with it, if, for example, sandalwood grew in Russia, then there would be many who would like to make smuggled "containers" out of it.

Cedar is used in carved sculpture and for the manufacture of turning art products. The population of the Urals and Siberia at all times preferred Siberian cedar for home decoration. From longitudinally sawn logs, boards of two arshins and more were obtained, which were used to make doors, floorboards and other joinery products. From the resinous wood of the cedar, chests, wardrobes, cabinets and chests of drawers were made.

The high content of phytoncides in cedar wood repels various insects, including moths. They also tried to make the bottom and lid of the birch bark from cedar wood, believing that it kills putrefactive bacteria. In Western Europe, cedar wood was used to make dishes: milk in such dishes does not sour for a long time and acquires a pleasant taste. Even in Ancient Novgorod, staves for cooperage utensils were pricked from cedar wood. At modern enterprises, barrels are made from cedar for the transportation and storage of granular caviar, as well as other products.

The high price of Siberian cedar wood products is due, in addition to all other components, to the fact that only wood from sanitary cuttings is used in the woodworking industry.

Maple

The genus Maple (Acer) unites about 150 species of deciduous trees and shrubs, of which about 25 can be found on the territory of Russia. Maples live mainly 150 - 200 years (in rare cases - up to 500 years).

Among hardwoods, maple wood is considered one of the most valuable. Masters have long treated her with respect. For example, the Trojan horse known from Greek mythology was made by the Greeks from maple. The use of maple is limited only by low biostability and a tendency to discoloration. The last drawback is removed by using various mordants and stains. Maple wood is used to make furniture. Well dried, it exhibits good shape and dimensional stability indoors, which is why one of its most popular products is countertops, particularly for restaurants and cafes. Together with other valuable breeds, it is used for inlay as contrasting details. It combines well with oak and fruit species (cherry, pear, apple), it combines well with beech, if the parts from these species do not directly touch. Combines with metal and glass details.

Maple parquet is especially valued for its high hardness and wear resistance. American sugar maple is used for floors in dance halls, bowling alleys, etc. Maple is very good for making stairs and interior decoration details. Maple is an excellent material for carving. It has a high resistance to chipping, so very thin cuts can be made on its wood, and the cuts are crisp, clean and smooth, with a soft glossy sheen. Moreover, they can be done in any direction, almost without fear of chips. Maple is widely used for crafts and kitchen utensils - spoons, ladles, carved and chiseled vessels. They are made by oars, tool handles, pads of hand planers, measuring and drawing tools. In the old days, a comb was made from maple wood for combing yarn, on which more than two hundred very thin and long teeth were cut.

It required great skill and the greatest caution. The comb was scraped, cleaned and sanded, and then impregnated for strength linseed oil and dried.

In modern production, maple wood is used for the manufacture of skis and rifle stocks, decorative wooden sculpture with fine modeling, and woodcuts.

For musical instruments, sycamore maple, or white maple, which grows in the Caucasus and the Carpathians, is widely used. Its wood has a beautiful texture pattern, especially in radial and semi-radial cuts, and has high acoustic and mechanical properties. Sound in it propagates at the same speed both across and along the fibers. Sycamore-maple is used to make lower soundboards, sides, necks and stands for bowed instruments: violins, cellos, double basses, violas and others. Canadian or sugar maple produces veneer, sometimes with a very bizarre texture called "bird's eye".

The main uses of sugar maple: parquet, solid board, clapboard, wall panels, furniture, flooring of gyms and bowling lanes, kitchen cabinets, countertops, cutting boards, toys, kitchen utensils, interior decoration, stairs, handrails, decoration elements, doors.

Pine

Scotch pine (Pínus sylvestris), pine family (Pinaceae). There are two versions of the origin of the Latin name. The first version: from the Celtic word pin, which means rock, mountain, that is, growing on rocks. The second version: from the Latin words pix, picis, which means resin, that is, a resinous tree.

There are 105 to 125 species of pines that are scattered throughout the Northern Hemisphere up to the Arctic Circle. In a temperate and cold climate, they form forests on the plains, in a warm climate they live in the mountains.

Pine wood is sound, resinous, rather dense, low-elasticity. In young and middle-aged trees, it is straight-layered. Becomes oblique with age. Depending on the characteristics of the growing conditions of the tree, the density and specific gravity pine wood are changing. On dry, infertile soils, a small-layer dense wood is formed near the pine, called kondovoy and is especially valuable in construction. On fertile, well-moistened soils, large-layer less dense mand wood with worse mechanical properties is formed.

Pine wood is distinguished by resinousness, strength and hardness, especially these qualities are inherent in the central parts of the trunk, which turn into the so-called core. This core differs from the outer layers of sapwood in a more intense color, which varies over a fairly wide range, depending on the growing conditions of the tree.

According to the color of the core in northern Russia, they usually distinguish kondo pine, which has a meat-red or yellowish-red core, and mandova, the core of which is painted in a pale yellowish color. Kondo pine grows in higher places, is distinguished by its thin layer and is valued much higher than myand pine, the wood of which is sometimes regarded on a par with spruce.

During drying and storage, the kernel darkens and takes on a brownish-red tint. Early wood is lighter than late wood. Knots are located in the core at the ends of the annual increase in growth. The shoots are directed upwards at an acute angle to the axis of the trunk, therefore, in the context (on lumber) they have an oval shape. Resin ducts are large and numerous. The wood is soft and easy to process, does not crack when dried. Due to its beautiful color and well-defined texture, it is widely used in the production of carpentry, in the manufacture of artistic carvings and turning products.

Depending on the degree of resinousness, two varieties of pine are distinguished - tar (heavily tarred) and dry chips, or butt, containing a minimum amount of resin. Dry chips were floated along the rivers, but pitch was not, since it is heavy and can sink along the way. Smolka can lie at the bottom of the river for decades. Therefore, they used it where it is very damp: in the construction of moorings, piers, bridges, parts of wooden ships. The carpenters tried to lay three or four crowns of tar in the log house first.

In carpentry, they try not to use resinous pine. During processing, the resin sticks to the tool and interferes with planing and sawing, clogs and greases grinding materials and tools, raises the varnish coating when accidentally heated. But if they are used, then before finishing it must be treated with special compounds to remove the resin, i.e. tarry.

Dry chips are used to manufacture products that cannot withstand heavy loads. It is easily cut and planed, lends itself well to etching and staining.

Pine wood finds a very wide application: a saw log for the production of lumber; shipbuilding range; deck ridge for the production of deck and boat lumber; pencil ridge; aviation range; riveting ridge for making parts barrel containers(for jellied, dry barrels and boxes); container range; sleeper ridge; plywood ridge; pulp balances; mast and hydraulic construction log; mine longitude and mine stand.

Oak

Oak (lat. Quercus), eng. Oak is a genus of trees and shrubs in the Beech family (Fagaceae) that lives an average of 1000 years. The Latin name for oak, Quercus, means "beautiful tree". The diameter of the trunk can exceed 2 m. The older the tree, the higher the quality of its wood.

The genus includes approximately 600 species. The natural habitat of the oak is the regions of the Northern Hemisphere with a temperate climate. The southern boundary of distribution is the tropical highlands.

From oak wood, our ancestors erected log cabins of wells - the water in them did not “bloom”, it was icy and clean. In the peasant economy, an oak table and an oak mortar were considered the best. Rims, skids were bent from oak, barrels, tubs, and bowls were made. Piles in the river were also hammered with oak.

The historical information that has come down to us speaks about the value of wood. If for a reserved tree of any species under Peter I a fine of 10 rubles was imposed, then for an oak a cutter was subject to the death penalty. In 1719 it was forbidden to cut oak throughout Rus'.

The wood of the oak core is dead and filled with special toxic substances - thyls, which, as it were, preserve the wood, protecting it from rot. Most valuable wood is closer to the core: it does not warp or crack. The color of the heartwood is from light to dark brown, the sapwood is yellowish brown. The sapwood is narrow - 8-10 annual layers.

Small vessels in the late part of the annual layer are located in radial rows. The medullary rays are strongly developed and clearly visible in all sections. The wood is very durable and difficult to cut. Prone to cracking. Bends well. It has a nice large texture. Easily dyed, stained to black. In the butt part of large trees, serration is found. In a radial cut, the texture of such an oak board is very beautiful. In the processing of a cutter, it is fragile, it requires a hard and sharp tool and care, it withstands large threads well. Small oak profiles are inexpressive. For joinery it is necessary to use oak at the age of 150-200 years. The end of the oak board is darker than the face, this must be taken into account when choosing the type of connection facing the face.

Oak wood is distinguished by strength, strength, density (690 kg / m3), hardness and heaviness. The properties of wood depend on the growing conditions of the tree. This is how it differs:

Oak wood is an excellent building and ornamental material: it goes to underwater and land buildings, the construction of underwater and main parts of wooden ships (mainly summer oak) and as barrel, crew, machine, furniture, parquet and carpentry wood (winter oak is preferred); especially valued for the latter is bog oak, which has lain in the water for a long time and has a dark, almost black wood. Although the heat output of oak is higher than that of other tree species, a large draft is required for the complete combustion of oak firewood, while coal does not hold heat.

Spruce

Spruce (lat. Pícea) - a genus of plants of the Pine family (Pináceae), by prevalence among coniferous trees ranks second after pine. Spruce lives - 250-300 years, there are trees up to 500-600 years old. In the USA (Colorado), a long-liver grows - Engelman spruce, whose age is 852 years.

The wood was white, with a slight yellowish tint, low resinous. Engelman spruce wood is darker - yellowish-brown. Resinous passages are few and small. Spruce wood has a homogeneous structure with annual layers clearly visible in all cuts, disturbed by numerous knots.

The microroughnesses remaining after processing the surface of spruce wood are 8-60 microns, which is significantly lower than that of hardwoods. Freshly cut spruce wood has a moisture content of about 110%. The maximum humidity at water absorption is 212%.

The permeability of liquids and gases along the fibers of spruce is slightly higher (by 15-20%) than that of pine, but the difference between the gas permeability in the radial and tangential directions is the largest in spruce (in the radial, more than in the radial, 10 times; in pines - 2-5 times).

In terms of strength properties, spruce wood is somewhat inferior to pine. In terms of long-term resistance to deformation, it is practically not inferior to pine, as well as in another indicator - the ability to hold fasteners. Spruce wood bends somewhat better than pine wood.

In terms of resistance to decay (biological damage), among domestic species, spruce is classified as medium-resistant species (it is noticeably inferior to pine heartwood), according to the European standard EN 350 - 2: 1994, spruce belongs to low-resistant species (pine is moderately resistant).

The generally good machinability of spruce wood is significantly hampered by numerous knots, the hardness of which is often so great that it causes chipping of the blades of the carbide tool.

Spruce is a tree exceptional in its properties. One of these properties is musicality. From ancient times, spruce has been used to make musical instruments, including strings. Novgorod gusli medieval Rus' most often made from spruce.

The upper soundboards of violins, cellos, guitars have long been made of resonant spruce, which provides the instruments with the beauty of sound. She seems to be holding the sound. The requirements for musical wood are special: not to have knots, curls, rolls and other defects. Annual layers should be of the same width, and on a radial cut, straight and parallel.

Spruce musical instruments have an amazing sound, because the fibers in the wood are distributed very evenly (such wood is called resonant). Violins by Italian makers, including Amati and Stradivari, are made from spruce.

In search of good material, craftsmen and restorers of musical instruments find wood when dismantling old houses, which, over decades of stable microclimate, acquires truly wonderful musical properties. The fact is that with gradual drying in the capillaries of the resin passages of wood, microscopic resonant chambers are formed, it seems to acquire a voice.

The 19th-century French explorer Savart calculated the speed of sound in spruce wood. It turned out that it is 15-16 times greater than the speed of sound in air. There have been many attempts to replace spruce wood with other types of wood, but none of them were successful. Experts believe that it is unlikely that it will be possible soon to find a material that, in terms of its acoustic properties, will be similar to a resonant spruce.

Spruce wood is difficult to process due to the high hardness of the knots, but in some areas the huts were built entirely from spruce. It was believed that it was easy to breathe in such a hut, there was even a saying: "The hut is a spruce, but the heart is great."

Spruce wood is soft, light, not very durable, used as a building material (boards, beams), for small crafts, for processing into wood pulp.

Spruce is used for the production of wood chemical products - paper and cardboard, cellulose, turpentine, rosin, tar, wood vinegar, methyl alcohol. Volatile fractions of different composition are isolated from needles and wood, consisting mainly of terpenoids - the so-called. essential oils, their main component is pinene.

Iroko

Iroko (Milicia excelsa) Moraceae (mulberry) family. The original name was given in honor of Senhor Militia, a manager from the state, which in this moment called Mozambique. Excelsa means high or long in Latin. A synonym is the name Chlorophora excelsa. Other names: mvule, odum, flounder, moreira rule, African teak, African oak, Nigerian teak, oroko, osan.

Iroko grows in vast areas, and its forests stretch from east to west throughout the African continent, but this breed is most often found in forests stretching from the Ivory Coast to Cameroon.

The iroko tree can reach a height of 48 m with a trunk diameter of up to 3 m. The butt is practically absent, and the trunk is almost knotless for the first 21 m. The bark is a pale ash gray fading to black. The leaves of young trees on top have a rough surface to the touch, resembling sandpaper, and are covered with a light fluff below. The shape of the leaves is elliptical or oval, the size is from 10 cm wide to 25 in length.

Heartwood has a wide range of colors from light to dark brown. Sapwood is easily distinguished by color from mature wood - it has a pale, dark brown color. Often there are dark stripes and strokes. The average wood density is 0.55 (weight of dried wood/volume of freshly sawn wood), which corresponds to an air-dry wood density of 672 kg/m3. Color and smell are not essential. The surface of the wood is moderately glossy, the fibers are intertwined. The texture is moderately coarse and even. Perhaps, as a result of damage to the tree, calcium carbonate can be found in the cavity of the cells, which forms hard, like stone, areas in the wood. If we compare Iroko with Teak, then these rocks have almost the same strength characteristics, hardness and resistance to applied loads. However, Iroko is slightly weaker than Teak in bending and also has a lower density along the fibers.

The wood dries well and quickly without any problems. There is a slight tendency to split and change geometry. Shrinkage ratios: 2.8% radial; 3.8% tangential; 8.8% by volume.

Iroko heartwood is extremely durable and never requires the use of preservatives. Sapwood, however, is attacked by borer worms.

In general, iroko wood is good and comfortable to work with. Boards containing stone-like inclusions act on the tool like sandpaper. Nails and screws hold well, stick together easily. Before polishing, a primer is recommended, in which case the surface will be highly glossy.

Iroko is used where strength and durability are most important. It is recommended to use this wood for the manufacture of table tops and bar counters with a high intensity of use. It is used in the manufacture of window frames, window sills, thresholds, doors, veneer, furniture, interior decoration and shipbuilding. As you can see, many uses for iroko are in the teak niche, as iroko performs almost the same function as teak, but at a much lower cost. Therefore, iroko can be safely called a folk or mass substitute tree for elite teak. Prices for this wood are not high, it is quite affordable in the Russian market.

According to some Serbian beliefs, a dry maple can turn green if an unjustly accused person touches it, and vice versa, a maple that has blossomed in spring can dry out if an offended, deeply unhappy person touches it. Slavic ritualism also did not bypass maple - maple branches were used to decorate houses, gates and other buildings on various holidays. In the myths of the Western and Eastern Slavs, a person who was “sworn” turns into a sycamore, often in these myths the mother, the poisoner of the child, and the wife, the poisoner of the husband, acted as the caster. Many ballads were composed about the transformation of a man into sycamore; the musicians, passing through the forest where the sycamore grew, cut it down and made musical instruments that could tell them about the fate of the man turned into a tree and the guilt of the caster. Therefore, firewood was not harvested from white maple, coffins were not made, sycamore leaves were not put in the oven under bread, since maple leaves resemble a palm with five fingers.

The maple leaf is both the official and unofficial emblem of Canada. early XVIII century. The official emblem of the maple leaf is on the flag and coat of arms of this country. The maple leaf became an unofficial emblem, having begun to gain more and more popularity and demand in Canada as an independent symbol of this country, depicted outside the coat of arms and flag. The maple leaf shows and emphasizes the unity of the nation.

Mostly the maple genus (Acer) is deciduous trees, less often shrubs, with the exception of a few South Asian and Mediterranean evergreen species. Maples are one of the most significant among broad-leaved deciduous trees. woody plants. It's connected with large quantity types and forms, decorative qualities, beautiful wood texture and its high physical and mechanical properties, the possibility of obtaining sweet maple sap during the active growing season, positive influence on the soil, as well as with the phytoncidal properties of this tree.

The genus maple arose in the late Cretaceous period and is one of the oldest genera of angiosperms. Many researchers consider the center of angiosperms to be South East Asia, and the place of occurrence of maple trees is Primorye and Southeast China. The species diversity of maple trees in the European part of Russia and the Baltic states is currently less than it was in the pre-Quaternary time, which is due to climate change during the ice age and the regressive changes in the number of species and range of the maple genus that occurred along with this. Today, the greatest species diversity of the most significant representatives of the maple genus is concentrated in the eastern part of Asia, in particular in China, in the eastern part of North America and in Central America, least of all maple trees are represented in Europe.

There is still no consensus among taxonomists about the exact number of species that make up the genus maple. According to various sources, there are from 60 to 230 species. Such big difference in the data is explained by the different understanding of the scope and criteria of species by scientists. The ranges of species of the genus maple in the overwhelming majority of cases are concentrated in mountainous regions and areas where the largest part of the species of this diverse genus has been preserved. Maple is one of the most constant companions of oak. Maple trees rarely form pure stands, more often they are part of hardwood, mixed or coniferous-broad-leaved stands, and maples are predominantly shade-tolerant trees. A significant part of all maple species are mesophytes, capable of withstanding drought for a short time. It is interesting that there is a direct relationship between drought resistance (or moisture-loving) and leaf size in the maple genus, the largest leaves are in the most moisture-loving species.

It is possible to determine the type of maple by the morphological features of leaves, fruits and wintering shoots, since they are very stable.

The soil conditions optimal in terms of mechanical composition for most maple species are medium loamy, less often light loamy, fertile, moderately moist soils. Maples are predominantly mesophytic, some North American species are mesohygrophytic, and some mediterranean views- xeromesophytes.

Most maples are propagated by seeds, some species can be propagated by layering - through the rooting of branches and shoots or cuttings.

Sap flow in maple trees begins in March, when the snow has mostly not yet melted, and the air temperature has reached -1-2 °C. When the air temperature reaches +5° С and more, sap flow is most intensive. When the temperature drops to -2 °C, sap flow stops. In the second decade of April, the growing season begins for maples, depending on weather conditions, the timing may vary, the leaf unfolding begins in the first half of May, and the duration of the leaf unfolding period is from 25 to 35 days. The timing of flowering in maples is not the same and maples are divided into three groups: early flowering (late April - early May), medium flowering (second half of May), late flowering (early June). Single-growing maples begin to bear fruit earlier than those that grow in a plantation. The maturation of lionfish occurs at different times, depending on the type of maple. Leaf coloring starts from mid-September and lasts until the second decade of October, on the northern side of the crown, leaf coloring begins earlier, the duration of autumn leaf color is from 20 to 30 days. Massive leaf fall begins in the second decade of October.

Characteristics of maple wood

Maple is a non-nuclear breed. The color of wood in most species is yellowish or pinkish with a reddish or brownish tinge, maple wood is pinkish, sycamore wood is white; maple wood tends to turn yellow over time. Many types of maple have a beautiful, varied wood texture. The decorativeness and beautiful pattern of the wood are given by narrow dark core rays, clearly visible in all cuts and especially in the radial one, they form a characteristic ripple due to their dark color and luster. The vessels of the maple are small and almost invisible to the naked eye, the annual layers are clearly visible on all cuts, the pores are unevenly located between the rings. The surface of wood is easily processed and polished, painted and covered with stain, as well as varnish. The wood splits well.

The physical and mechanical qualities of maple wood are valued much higher than those of conifers. The wood of all types of maple is heavy, finely porous, elastic, viscous, smooth, resilient, high-strength, slightly susceptible to warping, but when dried, it is subject to cracking, cracking and discoloration, therefore, it requires compliance with a certain drying regime. Maple wood is dense, the density ranges from 530 to 650 kg / m 3. The hardness of the wood varies greatly depending on the type of maple, with Canadian maple having the highest hardness. The wood of many maple species has high physical and mechanical properties, while slightly inferior to such species as oak, ash, beech, and in terms of such parameters as density and compressive strength, maple wood is on a par with oak, strength in static bending and the hardness of maple wood is about 12% higher than that of oak, ash and beech. Norway maple and small-leaved maple have the highest rates of physical and mechanical properties among maple species; they are almost identical in their properties. Field maple is inferior to them - in terms of specific work under impact bending, and Manchu maple - in strength under static load.

Conventionally, maple species can be divided into three groups according to the quality of wood.

The first, most numerous group includes moderately hard and durable wood, with a color from yellowish to pinkish, becoming more intense over time, well polished and, as a result, having excellent decorative properties. In the timber industry, the wood of this group is called the prefabricated word "maple". The second group includes more durable and hard wood, which, in addition, has a decorative pattern, beautiful texture, and a kind of soft sheen. Due to anomalies in the growth and development of trees, this wood acquires a beautiful unusual pattern and texture, which is called the "bird's eye". Such an anomaly of development is found in sugar maple, false maple, Trautfetter maple, as well as in single trees of Manchurian maple and Norway maple. In production, such wood is called "sycamore". Wood belonging to the third group is little used in the forestry industry and production, has extremely high strength and hardness and is very heavy.

anomalous wood

The anomalous bird's-eye wood got its name in Russian, probably as a result of the translation of the German word Vogelaugenahorn. This wood with such a texture has a similar name in English - Bird Eye.

Studies do not yet provide an explanation of the reasons for the formation of the bird's eye wood texture, but it can be assumed that its formation is most likely associated with internal denormalizing factors that affect growth processes. Data on how often representatives of the maple genus with signs of bird's eye texture are found in different parts range, may be indirect evidence that the violation of growth processes may be due to genotypic variability.

Table 2. Regions
natural distribution
maple

In the seventies of the 20th century, data appeared in the literature on the reasons for the formation of a similar texture of maple wood, which stated that its formation in sugar maple is a common phenomenon, and the characteristic decorative pattern is unevenly distributed in the wood, and in the process of making veneer of such wood, the pattern may disappear and reappear. Anomalous zones growth in wood spread along the radius to several annual layers. Externally, trees with anomalous bird's eye wood differ little from trees of the same species with normal wood. In sycamore, the formation of patterned decorative wood is associated with slow radial growth and the characteristic shape of the crust in the lower part of the trunk with depressions in it, resembling traces made by a sharp metal object.

Stocks of patterned sycamore wood in forests North Caucasus and the Carpathians are very small and are shrinking every year. To prevent the disappearance of this highly valuable tree, it is necessary to take measures to protect it and artificial breeding, including - using the method of micropropagation.

Representatives of the genus maple

Reaches up to 30 m in height and up to 1 m in diameter. Lives up to 150-200 years. The bark of young branches is reddish-ashy, smooth, darkens with age, becoming dark brown or sometimes black, and covered with numerous cracks. Shade-tolerant, cold-resistant, wind-resistant breed, especially in youth, demanding on moisture and soil richness, does not tolerate salinity and prolonged stagnant water. Prefers to grow on fertile light loamy and fresh sandy loams. AT vivo reproduces quite stable under the canopy of closed plantations by self-sowing and shoots. The root system is pivotal. The leaves are simple, have from five to seven lobes, dark green above, shiny, light green below, sometimes slightly pubescent along the veins. The flowers are yellowish-green, bloom at about the same time as the leaves open. Seeds ripen in September-October, with a bountiful harvest of seeds usually occurring every three to four years. The ash content of Norway maple leaves is 12.2%, the content of nitrogen and phosphorus in the leaves is 1.14 and 0.239%, respectively. Norway maple is very decorative in autumn, is a good honey plant, and is also recommended for planting as an accompanying species in shelterbelts.

A tree up to 18 m high and up to 50 cm in diameter with a beautiful hip-shaped dense crown. In favorable conditions, it can grow up to 25 m in height and up to 70 cm in diameter.

The tree is shade tolerant and wind tolerant, slow growing, prefers fresh and moist, well-drained soils, but can also grow in dry, rocky soils.

Ash-gray shoots, young shoots are yellow or gray, the base of the buds is dark brown, the flowers are light yellow. The leaves are almost always five-lobed, pubescent only in the corners of the veins.

Blossoms in May, fruits ripen in September, a bountiful harvest usually occurs every two to three years. The wood of the shoots is dense, grayish-white in color, used for making handicrafts and souvenirs.

This tree, reaching 15 m in height, often grows in a bushy form, being a tree of coppice origin. The bark is dark gray, the branches are grayish-brown, the flowers are greenish-white. The leaves are seven-lobed, less often - three to five lobed, pubescent below, bare above. Under natural conditions, it grows in the mountain forests of Central Asia on the slopes of different exposures, on fresh and moist soils, under the canopy of walnut and spruce.


A small tree, less often a large shrub, grows up to 7 m in height, the crown is ovoid. Undemanding to the richness of the soil, shade-tolerant, moisture-loving, cold-resistant. It grows in the second layer of coniferous and mixed forests, often along the banks of rivers and streams. The bark is yellowish-gray, young shoots are pubescent, reddish-brown, later becoming naked and yellowish-brown or brownish-carmine. The leaves are five-lobed, yellowish-green above, glabrous, pubescent below. The flowers are small, yellow, collected in many-flowered inflorescences, the tree blooms after the leaves bloom. Used in landscaping, is a good honey plant.

The tree, sometimes a tall shrub, reaches a height of up to 15 m, has a beautiful rounded crown. Shade-tolerant, winter-hardy, demanding on soil richness, grows on fresh and moist soils in the undergrowth, in partial shade of mixed plantations. The bark is brownish-gray, young shoots are reddish-brown, later becoming ash-brown. The leaves are shallow three-lobed, yellowish-green, orange-carmine in autumn. The flowers are greenish-yellow, bloom at the same time as the leaves bloom. The root system is superficial, fibrous.

Most often - a small shrub, less often - a small tree, reaching 6 m in height and 0.2 m in diameter. Winter-hardy, quite picky about soil moisture, grows on sandy-stony fresh, moist, damp and wet soils along the banks of rivers and streams. It is photophilous and does not grow under the canopy of a forest stand. The bark is bluish-red, later becoming brownish or brown. The leaves are three-lobed, the middle lobe is longer than the lateral ones, dark green above, lighter below, bright red or deep yellow in autumn. The flowers are collected in dense multi-flowered inflorescences, bloom three to four weeks after the leaves bloom. The root system is superficial. It is used in urban landscaping, tannins and black paint are obtained from the leaves, a good honey plant.

Deciduous broad-leaved tree, reaching 30-40 m in height and 100-150 cm in diameter, living up to 400 years. The crown of single sycamore trees is dense and spherical, while that of trees growing in plantations is wide-cylindrical, highly decorative. The bark is fissured, its color is from light gray to ashy, the bark of the shoots has a color from light brown to brown-gray, smooth, covered with shallow cracks on the branches. Buds pointed, ovoid, yellowish-green with a reddish tinge. The leaves of the white maple are three-five-lobed, dissected into 1/3-1/2, sometimes deeper, dark green above, whitish or bluish below. The inflorescence is a multi-flowered raceme with small, up to 8 mm in diameter, yellow-green flowers. The ash content of white maple leaves is 10.2%, the content of nitrogen and phosphorus in the leaves is 1.18 and 0.252%, respectively.

The natural range of the white maple is the Carpathians, the Caucasus, the middle, southern, southeastern part Western Europe, northern coast of Asia Minor. It grows as single trees, sometimes in groups, prefers fresh and moist soils of mountain forests, less often - valleys, does not tolerate soil salinity, does not tolerate excessive moisture and drying out.

It grows throughout the entire forest zone of the Caucasus on moist brown soils, to a greater extent if they are underlain by lime-containing maternal soils. rocks. Sycamore is quite shade-tolerant and thermophilic, avoids southern slopes. White maple naturally regenerates best in sycamore and ash-sycamore plantations. Sycamore often grows in plantations with beech, the undergrowth of which can inhibit sycamore, therefore, special attention should be paid to timely thinning with simultaneous removal of beech undergrowth. In young stands of sycamore, especially in the first decade, it is advisable to carry out clarification every three years, due to the high maintenance requirements of white maple.

A beautiful ornamental tree, less often a shrub, reaching 18 m in height and up to 0.5 m in diameter, lives up to 100-200 years. Shade tolerant, drought tolerant, grows on dry and fresh rich humus soils as a second layer or undergrowth in broadleaf forests.

The crown is wide, up to 10 m in diameter, tent-shaped, dense, highly decorative. The bark is longitudinally cracking, brown-gray, the shoots are dull-ash. The leaves have three to five leathery lobes, dark green above and light green to yellowish green below, turning light yellow in autumn. The flowers are yellowish-green and bloom later than those of Norway maple. The fruits ripen at the end of September. It can be renewed by seeds, shoots, layering and root offspring.

Suitable for growing in urban areas, tolerates shearing and crown formation. It is a good honey plant, used to create forest reclamation belts, and field maple wood is used to make handicrafts.

A large shrub or spreading tree, reaching 10 m in height. Light-requiring, grows slowly, along forest edges, clearings, on rocky slopes on fresh and moist soils in mountain mixed and coniferous forests. The bark is smooth, yellowish-gray, the young shoots are green, turning gray with age. The leaves have from three to five almost uniform lobes. The flowers are yellowish, collected in 4-6-flowered inflorescences, bloom at the same time as the leaves bloom. The root system is superficial, very fibrous. The bearded maple is highly decorative and is a good honey plant.


A small tree or shrub with an oval crown, reaches a height of 9 m. It is drought-resistant, winter-hardy, tolerates soil salinization, gas- and smoke-resistant, grows on dry, fresh or moist soils singly or in small groups on edges, clearings, clearings. The bark is dark ash to almost black, the shoots are reddish-brown, pubescent in youth, later glabrous. Leaves entire or slightly lobed. Above - naked, bright green, below - pubescent along the veins and lighter. Flowers are white, fragrant. The root system is superficial, slightly fibrous. It can be renewed by shoots and layering. There is a lot of vitamin C in the leaves, up to 2% sugar in the juice, the tree can be used in landscaping, a good honey plant.

Shrub or small tree up to 8 m in height. The crown is rounded or umbrella-shaped, lends itself to molding. Shade-loving, demanding on the richness and moisture of the soil, does not tolerate excessive moisture and dryness of the soil, grows slowly. The leaves have five to nine lobes that are bright green in summer, bright red in spring, and purple in fall. Purple flowers are collected in drooping inflorescences. It is used as a highly decorative breed in landscaping in the subtropical zone.

A slender tree, less often a shrub, reaching 8 m in height and 0.4 m in diameter, with a dense tent-like crown.

Shade-tolerant, grows on fresh soils, but does not tolerate stagnant moisture, grows in small groups along the banks of small rivers and streams on fresh and moist well-drained sandy soils, singly under the canopy of mixed and deciduous forest stands. The bark is light gray, darkens with age, young shoots are greenish or reddish, also darkening with age. The leaves are very beautiful, nine-lobed, dissected into 1/3-1/2, bright green in summer, red in autumn. The flowers are collected in long-stemmed inflorescences, bloom after the leaves bloom.

The wood is yellowish-white, hard, viscous, used for making small handicrafts. False sibold maple is a good honey plant.

Ornamental tree or shrub up to 12 m in height. Shade-tolerant, warm and moisture-loving, winter-hardy, demanding on the soil, grows as individual trees or in small groups on fresh and moist soils in dense coniferous or mixed forests. The bark is smooth, green, becoming grayish-greenish with age, the young shoots are dark carmine. The leaves are wide, rich green above, lighter below, three-lobed, in autumn they acquire a yellowish-golden color. The flowers are greenish-yellow, collected in an inflorescence-brush, bloom after the leaves bloom. The root system is superficial, fibrous, with a pronounced tap root. The juice contains up to 1.5% sugar. It can be used in plantings, it has a high decorative effect due to the beauty of the bark, the shape of the leaves and their autumn color.

A tree with a straight trunk, reaches up to 20 m in height and up to 0.6 in diameter. It grows on moist and fresh soils in mixed and deciduous forests, most often in river valleys. Crown of the correct rounded shape. The bark is grayish-brown, the shoots are reddish-brown. The leaves are compound, trifoliate, dark green above in summer, lighter below, purple in autumn. Inflorescences bloom at the same time as the leaves. The root system is superficial. Used for landscaping, good honey plant. The juice contains up to 2% sugar.

A tree reaching 40 m in height and 1 m in diameter, with a wide spreading tent-shaped crown. It grows on wet and damp soils, including those with stagnant moisture, along river valleys. Grows well in moist organic and mineral soils, the largest red maple trees grow in swampy areas. The bark is dark gray, the shoots are red. The leaves are three-five-lobed, dark green and shiny above in summer, glaucous or whitish below, reddish-green in spring, orange-red in autumn. The flowers are red, less often - yellowish, bloom before the leaves. Trees growing in damp places have a shallow root system, while in dry and stony places a tap root develops.

Reaches up to 40 m in height and up to 1.5 in diameter, the crown is wide, with drooping branches. Shade-tolerant, cold-resistant, tolerates dry air, grows quite quickly on moist, damp and wet soils along flooded sandy banks of rivers. The branches are covered with light ash bark, the shoots are yellowish-brown. The leaves are five-lobed, bright green above in summer, white-silver below, pubescent when young, golden yellow in autumn. It blooms before the leaves bloom, the flowers are collected in small-flowered inflorescences. The root system is widely spread, sometimes going quite deep into the soil. The tree is used to produce maple sugar and syrup, as well as for landscaping.

Reaches 25 m in height and 1 m in diameter, often multi-stemmed, the crown is round or ovoid, with drooping branches. It is cold-resistant, drought- and heat-resistant, short-lived, grows quickly on soils - from fresh to wet, along the banks and valleys of rivers and lakes. Shoots are reddish-brown, sometimes dark green, often with a waxy bluish coating. The leaves are pinnately compound, the leaflets are usually three to five, but may be seven or nine. Blooms before the leaves open. The root system is superficial, but with a taproot. Widely used in landscaping. The leaves contain a lot of vitamin C. The wood is soft, brittle, brittle.


A tree reaching a height of 40 m and 0.5 m in diameter, living 300-400 years, has a dense, spreading crown. It grows on fresh, well-drained soils in the zone of mixed coniferous-deciduous forests. The bark is gray with a hint of ash or brown, darkens with age, the branches are red-brown. The root system is quite deep. Simple leaves usually have five lobes, in summer the leaves are shiny, bright green above, paler and rough below, turning bright red and yellow-orange in autumn. The flowers are small, yellowish-green, collected in clusters of 8-14 in a brush. The ash content of sugar maple leaves is 10.4%, the phosphorus content in the leaves is 0.236%.

Use of maple wood

The excellent physical and mechanical properties of maple wood provide high-quality material for sawmill production. White maple and Norway maple are used as building timber, as well as furniture wood, in Europe. North America- sugar maple and black maple, called "American hard maple", silver maple and red maple, called "American soft maple". In East Asia, the small-leaved maple is widely used. Mostly maple is used to make furniture, and also use it in interior decoration. In the middle of the 20th century, maple veneer with a smooth or serpentine grain pattern, due to its beautiful natural color, was a sought-after material for exterior decoration and furniture design. But due to the tendency of maple wood to darken over time and acquire a yellowish tint, it quickly ceased to be widely used as front panels. Now maple wood is used for furniture finishing. Maple wood is also used for the manufacture of solid wood countertops, parquet and stairs, as maple is highly resistant to abrasion.

In the old days, light maple wood was used for the manufacture of not only furniture, but also various household and kitchen items, spinning wheels, rifle butts, shoe nails, wheel rims, ax handles, and oars. Today, maple wood is used to make household and kitchen appliances, toys, wooden parts of cars, turning crafts, and it is also used to make intarsia. Wood beautiful texture without cracks and defects, amenable to polishing, used for making souvenirs. In addition, maple is a musical tree. Since ancient times, smooth-layered, hard, with a uniform arrangement of annual layers, sycamore wood has been used as decorative and resonant wood in the manufacture of bodies of stringed and wind musical instruments, soundboards and guitar necks.

Maples are good honey plants, an important source of pollen for bees in early spring, so they are often planted near apiaries. The honey productivity of maple reaches 100-200 kg per 1 ha of plantations. Maple is also used in medicine. AT folk medicine Norway maple juice, its fruits and young leaves are used, which is due to its antiseptic, anti-inflammatory, wound healing, restorative and analgesic effect.

The wood of the trunks and burls of certain types of maple is especially valued, which, as a result of the occurrence of anomalies during growth, has a decorative curly wood structure. Veneer is usually made from such wood for decorative furniture finishing.

The short-grained maple wood can be used to make pulp, for this purpose it is mixed with softwood pulp. It is possible to produce plywood of the highest grades from small-leaved maple wood, the yield of which from plywood logs will be one and a half to two times higher than from plywood logs of flat-leaved birch. The bark of different types of maple contains tannin, tannins and sugary substances.

Maples are used in ornamental gardening and green building for group and alley plantings and creating hedges. They are valued for the beauty of the crown and the shape of the leaves, the color of the bark, openwork foliage, rich green in summer and bright yellow and bright red in autumn. Almost all types of maples are used as ornamental trees, for many species, different garden forms have been bred, differing in leaf color or crown shape.

Since the spring maple sap of some maple species contains up to 3% sugars, and sugar maple - up to 4%, in some regions maple tapping is a separate industry. This trade is especially widely developed in the USA and Canada, where sugar maple is used on an industrial scale. As a result of the processing of maple juice by boiling and cleaning, maple syrup and sugar are obtained for the confectionery industry. The taste of maple sugar is different from the usual beet sugar, and some people prefer it.

Elena KARPOVA, Anton KUZNETSOV,
cand. biol. Sciences, Associate Professor, Department of General Ecology,
plant physiology and wood science SPbGLTU

Botanical name: Norway maple (lat. Acer platanoides) of the Sapindaceae family (lat. Sapindaceae) of the class Magnoliopsida (lat. Magnoliópsida). On English sites Norway Maple is called Norway Maple, on Russian sites it is Common Maple or Sycamore Maple.

Growth area

Norway maple (European maple) is a native of continental Europe. Its range extends into eastern and central Europe, as well as into Western Asia. Distribution - from France to the east to Russia, from the north of Scandinavia - to the southeast to the north of Iran. Widespread in the USA.

Morphological description of European maple

Is deciduous tree up to 20-30 m tall with a trunk up to 1.5 m in diameter, with a wide round crown. The bark is gray-brown with shallow fissures.

Unlike many other maples, mature trees do not tend to develop flaky bark. The shoots are green at first, soon becoming pale brown. Winter buds are shiny, red-brown.

Leaves opposite, palmately lobed. Blades, usually in the amount of 5 pieces, sharply pointed, with large but sparse teeth. Leaf blade 7-14 cm long and 8-20 cm wide. Petiole 8-20 cm long, secretes white milky juice when crushed.

Flowers 3-6 mm long appear in April-May, yellow-green, collected 20-50 pieces in standing roundish inflorescences-scutellum.

The fruit is paired winged achenes 8-11 cl long. The seeds are disk-shaped, strongly flattened 10-15 mm in diameter and 3 mm thick. Flattened wings 3–5 cm wide apart, approaching an angle of 180◦.

The paired fruit, green when ripe, acquires a yellow-brown color, splits into two lionfish, which, falling, spin in a spiral and are carried by the wind over long distances.

Features of European maple wood

The wood is yellowish white to pale reddish brown. Becomes brighter after drying. Sapwood and heartwood do not differ sharply.

Annual rings are very thin and bright, they give a silky surface when sawn radially and brightly decorative European maple board.

The grain is usually straight, sometimes wavy. The texture is fine-grained, fine with a beautiful natural sheen. The wood is moderately heavy to medium density (specific gravity 645-660 kg/m3), hard (Janke hardness: 1010 lbs). Easily processed, polished and painted, does not warp. The biostability index is slightly less than that of sycamore.


The use of Norway maple wood

Manufacture of furniture, musical instruments, veneer, finishing materials for interior work, flooring, doors, etc. Good honey plant. Norway maple inhibits the growth of native seedlings of other trees. Also European maple seedlings suffer less from herbivores than sugar maple shoots, which allows it to gain a competitive advantage in growth. Because of these properties, the species is considered invasive and has been banned in some states, such as New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and New York State.