As you walk along the entry sidewalk towards the Home Economics Building, you will see this tree on the left.
In general, maple leaves are easy to recognize because they are opposite on the
twig and have palmate veins. Silver maple
leaves have jagged margins with small teeth along the lobes. In the spring, silver maple is one of the first trees to
bloom. Its winged
fruits often have one seed of the pair much smaller than the other.
In the wild, silver maple trees are typically seen only in wet areas, such as lowlands along large rivers. However, it is a commonly planted street tree, so it is very likely to be encountered by city dwellers.
This tree is described on
p. 84 of The Trees of Vanderbilt.