Sugar maple  Acer Saccharum is grown in Britain more as a talking point than for its ornamental merit. Although the conversation will inevitably turn to maple syrup, British grown trees do not produce much of it. Superficially this tree resembles Norway maple but it is usually more upright. It comes from a huge area in North America. From subtropical Guatemala and Mexico to Canada. It is a variable polymorphic species so is difficult to describe and identify. This is the true sugar maple producing sap from which maple syrup is made. In America the foliage colour is also quite spectacular, but most British trees tend to only colour briefly yellow and then red. It was introduced in 1735. The subspecies grandidentatum, leucoderme and nigrum used to be classified as species in their own right, but now they are considered to be part of the sugar maple complex. The species name saccharum, meaning sweet and sugary, was attributed to the tree in 1785 by Humphrey Marshal the American