Box Elder

The boxelder is a small to medium sized tree, 35-50 ft tall, with a stout trunk and wide, splaying branches. The light grey-brown trunk is covered in deep, scaly, broad ridges. The branches, smooth and supple green when young, furrow and darken as they age, though only slightly. The slender shoots, from which the leaves emerge, are a waxy red at their tips. The soft, bright green leaves are composed of 3-7 pinnately compounded leaflets. The slightly serrated leaflets, which grow from a single reddish stem in opposite pairs (with the exception of a single leaflet at tip), are 5-10 cm long and 3-7 cm wide. The small yellow-green flowers vary in appearance depending on the specimen’s sex, as this tree is dioecious. The staminate (male) flowers grow in clusters on pedicels (stalks with single flowers), while the pistillate (female) flowers grow on drooping racemes (a cluster of flowers attached to a central stem by equal length and equally distanced stalks) 10-20 cm long. The fruit, which grows in bountiful clusters, is a paired samara. From the encased 1-2 cm seed stretch two sloping wings, 2-3 cm long.

Basic Information

• Member of the Sapindaceae (Soapberry) family

• Deciduous

• Fast growing and relatively short-lived, with a typical lifespan of only 60 years

• There are three recognized varieties of this plant:

  • Acer negundo subsp. negundo — native from the Atlantic Coast to the Rocky Mountains

  • Acer negundo subsp. interius — native from Saskatchewan, Canada to New Mexico; has more leaf serration and a more matte leaf surface than other subspecies

  • Acer negundo subsp. californicum — native to California and Arizona; has larger, velvety leaves

Habitat

• Native to much of North America

  • In California, this plant is found in the coastal mountain ranges from Mendocino County to San Diego County and in the Central Valley

• Commonly found in moist woodland or forest ecosystems near stream sides and riverbanks

• Considered invasive or weedy in areas where it has been introduced, such as South America, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, much of Europe, and parts of Asia

  • Can often be found growing on roadsides and in ditches

Ecological Role

• Squirrels and birds, including the evening grosbeak, eat the seeds

• A number of bugs, including the boxelder bug (Boisea trivittata) and rosy maple moth (Dryocampa rubicunda), lay their eggs on these maples

Reproduction

• Blooms from March-April

• Is dioecious, meaning that each tree has a sex, and both a male and female tree are needed to reproduce

Alternative Names

• Boxelder Maple, Ashleaf Maple, California Boxelder, Manitoba Maple, Maple Ash, Red River Maple, Fresno De Guajuco

Historical Uses

• The wood of this plant was widely used by Native Americans:

  • The Navajo used the hollowed out branches to make bellows for fires

  • The Cheyenne made bowls from the wood and burned as incense for spiritual medicines

  • Native Americans in Montana used the large knots, or burls, in the trunk to make bowls, dishes, drums, and pipe stems

  • The Tewa use the twigs as pipe stems

  • The Keres make the twigs into prayer sticks

  • Dakota and Omaha people made the wood into charcoal, which was then used in ceremonial painting and tattooing

• The inner bark was also used as an emetic (inducer of vomiting) by tribes such as the Meskwaki and Ojibwa

• The sap was made into a sugary syrup by many Native American tribes including the Dakota, Omaha, Pawnee, the Ponca, Winnebago, Cree, and Sioux

• The Chiricahua and Mescalero Apache keep the dry scrapings of the inner bark as a winter food, which they boiled

• The Cheyenne boiled the sap with shavings from animal hides and eat it as candy