If you are in the woods, look about and you will probably see a maple. If you are in an ornamentals garden, you should also be able to see a maple. Maples are comfortably familiar to us all; they are characteristic of the north temperate zone throughout the world. They occur in almost every terrestrial habitat, often as indicators of a vegetation type; and provide educational examples of interesting distribution patterns. For example, if you are acquainted with our eastern North American species you know that Acer rubrum is extremely widespread and may be found in virtually any habitat, while A. leucoderme has a very narrow Southeastern piedmont distribution on dry river bluffs.