Need some help from an arborist

[Steve Demuth]

Both trees and both leaves look consistent with Red Maple (Acer rubrrum) to me. You'll know in the Spring or fall, 'cause A rubrum is the only North American maple that I'm aware of that has scarlet red flowers, and the leaves are brick red in the fall. Generally, the leaf stems are also reddish, which isn't apparent in the first of your pictures, but I don't think that's definitive. Your leaves also show some of the characteristic chlorosis that A rubrum gets when grown on a too alkaline soil.

There are five maples indigenous to your area. They are not striped maple, and if they were silver maple, you'd know by the coloring of the back side of the leaves. They don't look like sugar maple, so that leaves black and red maple. Looks like two red maples to me, but as I say, the fall color will be definitive.

[Steve Demuth]

There are so many variants of Maple (and other species) that sometimes it can make one's head spin! They tend to get grouped together sometimes from a practical perspective with some entities that sell trees, too.

Maples are a little complicated, but there aren't that many species East of the Rockies, and they are not rampant hybridizers compared to, say "white" oaks. Much of the the diversity in maples is because of cultivars planted in urban and suburban areas which were selected for specific characteristics.

But the "white" oaks in the woods - could be anything. They cross every which way.

[Tom Bender]

Steve
That coarse bark is really unusual. Seems like it must be a different variety, certainly not something I have seen in New England.

[Lee Schierer]

Steve
That coarse bark is really unusual. Seems like it must be a different variety, certainly not something I have seen in New England.

I went back out yesterday and looked at additional leaves. Both trees have identical leaves. I can find examples of the rounded bottom leaf and the pointed lobe leaf on each tree. The only difference seems to be that one has shaggy bark. Even though they are only 30 feet apart, the shaggy bark one is in a slightly wetter area of the yard. Both seem healthy. BOth bud out at the same time and their leaves turn the same red color and drop at the same time in the fall.

[Andrew Seemann]

Maples around here will get that shaggy bark sometimes as they get older and larger. Silvers more so than Sugars, but they both will do it. Reds are less common here so I don't have a lot of experience with them, but I would guess they would do it as well.

[Mel Fulks]

I posted too deep in ground is bad. Well, Ive got a serviceberry tree with all yellow leaves in a "wild" area.
It should have berries, but does not. Checked it today and saw soil had washed down covering most of the flare.
I opperated. it's going to do just fine.