striped maple

Acer pensylvanicum · Sapindaceae · all Acer records · Wikipedia

Is this one for your yard?

Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.

Acer pensylvanicum is on-list, with the striped maple recommendation traceable through the evidence table. That listing is the leading selected conclusion for this species.

Its accepted source pack remains limited evidence. The cited rows define that boundary without implying an unrecorded test method, condition, or performance result.

Two hardiness assertions have their own provenance under hardiness evidence, separate from the recommendation sources. That division keeps each climate citation checkable without merging it into list status.

The broader Acer collection, related plants, and range evidence add context without extending these species-specific facts.

Form: tree
Mature height: ~25 ft
Light: Part sun
Water need: low
Rated in: Maine; Ohio / Midwest; Virginia / Mid-Atlantic; eastern US

On this lot

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence: Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
Fire-performance conditions
Fire ecology context
Placement evidence: 2 source placement records; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions: Maine; Ohio / Midwest; Virginia / Mid-Atlantic; eastern US
Maintenance

Typed publication scope: 3 scopes across 3 cited fire sources

Maine fire-resistant plant list · Official scoped edition
- ME; partial normalized coverage · 2013-10-23
  Maine Forest Service presents a partial list for landscaping 30-100 feet from a structure. FireApproved publishes only 39 unique exact current/accepted matches plus Rhus typhina from the source's explicit parenthetical; unresolved, abbreviated, misspelled, absent, and duplicate-owner rows remain held.
Firewise Landscaping (OSU Extension Bulletin 921) · Official scoped edition
- OH; partial normalized coverage · 2006-03-01
  Ohio State University Extension Bulletin 921 is an Ohio publication that describes Ohio fire seasons and landscape conditions and labels nativity to Ohio. FireApproved publishes 352 exact source-owning plant records from its eight rated tables. This historical publication scope does not assert current extension endorsement or that a listed plant suits every Ohio site.
Virginia Firescapes — Firewise Landscaping for Woodland Homes (430-300) · Official scoped edition
- VA; partial normalized coverage · 2009-04-15
  Virginia Cooperative Extension's publication opens with Virginia wildfire conditions, identifies its Virginia Firewise Landscaping Task Force, and labels plants native to Virginia. FireApproved publishes 306 exact source owners. Publication scope does not establish parcel suitability or current endorsement of this archived 2009 list.

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution: Documented in CT, DC, DE, GA, KY, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, NC, NH, NJ, NY, OH, PA, RI, SC, TN, VA, VT, WI, WV.
Native range: Current cited native range in CT, GA, KY, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, NC, NH, NJ, NY, OH, PA, RI, SC, TN, VA, VT, WI, WV.
Introduced / established
USDA hardiness: Documented minimum 2a; no upper limit is documented.

3. Legal, ecological, and broader status

Legal-list status
Seed-list status
Reported invasive here
Broader regional context
Federal context

How to read this page

The status above is computed from the cited rows below: independent recommendations can support a fire-resistant result, an avoid row can produce keep-away, and disagreement stays visible as conflict. Placement notes preserve each source’s own scheme rather than translating unlike rules into one scale. This is evidence about a plant, not permission to plant it in every part of the defensible space; Zone 0 remains noncombustible.

Native and introduced range evidence

These are exact U.S. botanical-area records from the cited range source. Native and introduced describe biogeographic relationship, not fire performance or planting approval. Doubtful and extinct rows stay visible but do not count as current presence.

Current native

21

exact source areas

Current introduced

0

exact source areas

Qualified

0

doubtful or extinct source rows

21 native source areas · World Checklist of Vascular Plants, version 16 v16, as of 2026-06-04

Connecticut (CT)
Georgia (GA)
Kentucky (KY)
Massachusetts (MA)
Maryland (MD)
Maine (ME)
Michigan (MI)
Minnesota (MN)
North Carolina (NC)
New Hampshire (NH)
New Jersey (NJ)
New York (NY)
Ohio (OH)
Pennsylvania (PA)
Rhode I. (RI)
South Carolina (SC)
Tennessee (TN)
Virginia (VA)
Vermont (VT)
Wisconsin (WI)
West Virginia (WV)

The lossless worldwide derivative is retained once in the research corpus; object pages repeat only exact U.S. areas needed by the local lens. The JSON twin carries the same page assertions.

Plant hardiness evidence

These values describe the plant source. Your ZIP zone comes from the separate 2023 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map. Whole-zone values stay whole-zone, and a single unresolved value is not treated as a tolerance range. Different source boundaries stay separate: overlapping statements are compared independently, while only ranges with no shared zone are called a conflict.

Eastern United States Fire Performance Plant Selector · record acer-pensylvanicum · 2016-wayback · as of 2026-08-26

Source prints 3 · single-value meaning unresolved · whole zone precision · source stated

Source taxon: Acer pensylvanicum · exact match.

Source location: Cold Hardiness Zone field in the recovered selector record.

Not used for comparison: The recovered selector prints one Cold Hardiness Zone value but does not define it as a minimum threshold or a one-zone range.
USDA PLANTS Database — Plant Characteristics · record ACPE · PLANTS Help Document 2022; characteristics cache retrieved 2026-08-23 · as of 2026-08-26

Minimum 2a · no upper limit documented · half zone precision · derived containing band

Exact source measurement: -47°F; mapped only to its containing half-zone.

Source taxon: Acer pensylvanicum · source identifier match.

Source location: PlantCharacteristics record 92842, Temperature, Minimum (°F).

Where its sources say to plant it

Placement rules below use each source's own distances or named zones, tied to its rating. They are not interchangeable with the directory's current Zone 0 guidance.

Eastern United States Fire Performance Plant Selector: Landscape Zone 3 — 10–30 ft from the structure; thin vegetation, remove debris, and minimize plant massing [Fire Performance Plant Selector landscape zone] (with its recommendation)
Maine fire-resistant plant list: Trees, page 1: Striped maple - Acer pensylvanicum [Maine Forest Service list section and page] (with its recommendation)

The evidence

Grouped by what each source concluded. Primary evidence rated the plant itself (a lab, field program, or original curation); corroboration compiled or republished another source's rating and resolves to its root lineage.

Guides that discuss this plant

Is the maple economy also a fuel break

Last verified 2026-08-23. JSON (CC BY 4.0)

Profiles: USDA PLANTS · GBIF · iNaturalist · Wikidata · Wikipedia · ITIS

Acer pensylvanicum (Striped maple). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/acer-pensylvanicum/. Last verified 2026-08-23.