Acer campestre (Field Maple)
In Toll Wood:
Field Maples are our only native maple. Not to be confused with the sycamore, whose leaf is much larger and 'spikier' in outline.
There are only a few in Toll Wood, so we can plan to plant more as space allows as part of our succession-planting strategy to maintain and enhance biodiversity. This is a fast-growing species that can fill spaces created by natural losses or felling.
These trees are important for the variety of invertebrates they are able to support, on a par with hornbeams that are well represented in Toll Wood.
An important woodland, hedgrow and parkland tree. Field maples are insect pollinated, supporting a wide range of invertebrates throughout its lifetime, including a number of moths such as the small yellow wave and mocha. The nectar attracts birds too, with attracted insects as a side-dish. The seeds are an important food source for small mammals. The leaves are particularly inviting to several 'chewing' insects and sap feeders - all of which are foodstuffs to birds, ladybirds, and hoverflies. Autumn leaves provide a good display of gold and provide deep rich leaf litter to enrich the woodland floor, under which its mycorrhizal fungi extend widely. The tree also supports a range of mosses and lichens. The decaying, veteran trees are important to many more species that exploit the toughness and persistence of this toughest and densest of woods.
Management Objectives: Add a few new saplings into the wood as part of succession-planting. While we can leave them to grow naturally (as "maidens"), Field Maples also respond well to pollarding. Pollarding creates complexity in the understorey for the benefit of small mammals and birds.
Any pollarding could usefully include periodic "air layering" of accessible branches to propogate new trees. Seed-collection should take place. as well as community alongside collecting seeds
Biodiversity value: MEDIUM/HIGH
They are particularly important for leaf-litter, lichens, fungi, mycorrhizal networks and invertebrates. As such, it is important to about 38 invertebrate "chewer" species and 13 sap-feeders.
Leaf fall: Field maples generally lose their leaves in mid-season (October/Early November), depending on first frosts. With climate change extending warm periods, holding onto leaves for longer makes sense as a survival mechanism. But, potentially more extreme autumn storms leaves them vulnerable to wind-throw or damage to limbs if leaves remain too long.
