Acer negundo

Acer negundo is a species of maple native to North America. Box elder, boxelder maple, ash-leaved maple, and maple ash are its most common names in the United States; in Britain and Ireland it is also known as ashleaf maple.

Common names

Indicative of its familiarity to many people over a large geographic range, A. negundo has numerous common names.

The names "box elder" and "boxelder maple" are based upon the similarity of its whitish wood to that of boxwood and the similarity of its pinnately compound leaves to those of some species of elder. This is the only North American maple with compound leaves, though several Asian species also have them.

Other common names are based upon this maple's similarity to ash, its preferred environment, its sugary sap, a description of its leaves, its binomial name, and so on. These names include (but are not limited to) ash-, cut-, or three-leaf (or -leaved) maple; ash maple; sugar ash; Negundo maple; and river maple. In Canada it is commonly known as Manitoba maple and occasionally as elf maple. In Russia it is called American maple (Russian: американский клён) as well as ash-leaf maple (Russian: клён ясенелистный), and in Italian acero americano.