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Red Sunset Maple Fruit

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From: Angela O’Neal
City:
Sherman, IL
I plan to plant a sunset maple and want to know if they have helicopters.

 
Extension Message
From: Jay Hayek
Extension Specialist, Forestry
Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences
jhayek@illinois.edu
Hi Angela:

Red sunset maple is a red maple (Acer rubrum) cultivar. Therefore, this species is technically polygamodioecious, meaning some specimens are male, some female, and some monoecious (i.e., male flowers and female flowers in separate structures, but on the same plant). Specimens that are female and monoecious will eventually bare samaras (aka, helicopters).

It is also worth noting that this species, under the proper conditions, can switch from male to female, male to perfect flowers, and perfect flowers to female -- yep, welcome to wonderful world of botany!

So, to answer your question: yes, the probability of a red sunset maple producing fruit is very high!

 
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