Livestock, particularly goats, when confined to pastures year round consume all of the seedling trees for food and thereby prevent the natural renewal of trees to replace those that die from natural causes. The story of the threatened demise of the maples begins with the settling of the land and introduction of livestock that was confined to pastures year round by fencing. The blame for this unhappy event does not lie with the changeability of weather patterns, but with our failure to perceive that it is happening and to take corrective measures to restore these beautiful trees to the plant community. Despite these hardy attributes, and its striking beauty, the maples are gradually dying out of the plant community in many of the Bandera County localities. Serious insect problems or diseases have not been observed to be a problem. Most of the other maples prefer acidic soils and do poorly in alkaline conditions, but the Bigtooth Maple is a native of shallow, rocky, caliche soils and it will thrive in soils that few other trees will tolerate. One of their most desirable traits is that they thrive in very alkaline soils. They differ from the northern maples in that their leaves are much smaller, a concession they have made to the dry climate in which they live. The formula for the maximum coloration of the leaves is not really known, but it is certain that chilly nights, warm days, and dry falls are necessary for color.īigtooth Maples live for hundreds of years, are bona fide sugar maples, and are highly desirable for their decorative wood. In some years, particularly when the maples are seeding (generally every 5 to 7 years), the color does not develop. If the weather is favorable, the colors are maximized, but if warm, wet weather prevails, the colors are muted. The intensity and variety of colors that the maples provide are breathtaking, but the colors are a response of the tree to the changing conditions at the onset of cooler autumn weather. Visitors, armed with cameras, flock to the parks containing the maples in late October and early November to try to record one of natures most inspired displays of color. It is, however, a little difficult to see, because there are no roads in the canyon and it can be seen only by hiking at least 3 or 4 miles up the canyon.Īlthough many of the relict plants that occupy these canyons are beautiful, the Bigtooth Maples are the star of the show because of their blazing fall colors. McKittrick Canyon, of the Guadalupe Mountains, is the largest and grandest of the canyons containing the relict flora. In each of these locations the same relict flora occurs, and always in a similar setting reliable water in protected canyons. Other localities are near Belton, the Glass Mountain area of west Texas, and the Guadalupe Mountains National Park on the Texas-New Mexico line. In the Texas area, the deeper canyons of central Bandera County centering around the Lost Maples State Natural Area (the headwaters of the Sabinal River) hold one of the best populations of these plants in the state. Among the plants that survived almost exclusively in the protected canyons are hardwood trees such as Bigtooth Maple, Chinquapin Oak, Black Walnut, Linden (Basswood), Cedar Elm, Black Cherry, and understory plants such as the Mexican Buckeye, Carolina Buckthorn, Sycamore Leaf Snowbell, Witch Hazel, and Spice bush. Within these exotic localities, a microclimate exists that has helped sustain a great variety of plants that collectively are called a “relict” flora, because the plants living in them today are true fossils of an ancient forest in an ancient time. Over many centuries, the semi-arid conditions of today developed and gradually the maples died out in harsher localities, but sought sustaining shelter from the elements and life-giving moisture from the cool, clear springs in the steep-sided canyons of the Bandera County region. As the great ice sheets receded, the climate of the Hill Country became gradually warmer and dryer, and the hardwood forests began to die out as cooler, wetter years gave way to a hotter, dryer climate less suitable for supporting the forests. Acer grandidentatum, or Bigtooth Maple, the “lost” native maple tree of the Texas Hill Country, lived in profusion in the midst of hardwood forests until the end of the last great ice age, about 10,000 years ago.

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