General: Maple Family (Aceraceae): Boxelder is a native tree growing to 20 m tall, with broad rounded
crown, usually developing a shallow, fibrous root system; bark light gray-brown with shallow fissures,
becoming deeply furrowed; twigs slender, shiny green, usually glabrous but sometimes hairy. The
leaves are opposite, 13-20 cm long, pinnately compound with 3(-5 or more) leaflets 5-10 cm long
and 3-6 cm wide, long-pointed, coarsely toothed and often shallowly lobed. The flowers are yellow-green, about 5 mm long, the male (staminate) flowers fascicled, the female (pistillate) flowers in drooping
racemes; most trees are either male or female (the species is essentially dioecious), but bisexual flowers
occur on a few trees (technically dioecious). Fruits are winged nutlets (samaras) in a pair, 2.5-4 cm long, clustered on long stalks. The common name refers to the resemblance of leaves to
those of ash (Fraxinus). Boxelder, its other often used common name, refers to a resemblance to elder
(Sambucus) and the use of the soft wood for box making.
Boxelder is unusual among American maples in having compound leaves. Apart from the opposite
leaves, seedlings and young saplings of Boxelder bear a remarkable resemblance to poison ivy
(Toxicodendron radicans) and are often mistaken for it by beginning naturalists. No Shipping AK, HI