Maples
- average 10–45 m (33–148 ft) height. Some shrubs less than 10 metres tall with small trunks originating at ground level.
- Deciduous, renowned for their autumn leaf colour, but some in southern Asia and the Mediterranean region are evergreen.
- Shade-tolerant when young
- Riparian, understory, or pioneer species rather than climax overstory trees with a few exceptions such as the Sugar Maple.
- Root systems are typically dense and fibrous, inhibiting the growth of other vegetation underneath them.
- Fruit, called samaras, "maple keys", "helicopters", "whirlybirds" or "polynoses" occur in distinctive pairs each containing one seed enclosed in a "nutlet" attached to a flattened wing of fibrous, papery tissue. They are shaped to spin as they fall and to carry the seeds a considerable distance on the wind. People often call them "helicopters" due to the way that they spin as they fall. Maturation is in a few weeks to six months after flowering, with seed dispersal shortly after maturity. One tree can release hundreds of thousands of seeds in one season.
Ramification
The divergence of the stem and limbs of a tree into smaller ones, i.e. trunk into branches, branches into increasingly smaller branches, etc. Gardeners stimulate the process through pruning, thereby producing a bushier and denser plant.