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This tree provides color year-round. In the winter, its green stems turn red. When new leaves grow, they are red-tinged before turning green and in the fall, the leaves are a deep red or yellow while their flowers are also red. The maple produces helicopter-looking fruits called samaras, that provide food for squirrels and other rodents. Rabbits and deer also eat the tender shoots and the leaves of red maples.

The red maple has the greatest north-south range of any tree species living entirely in eastern forests. The largest red maple lies in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Reaching 141’ tall and 7’ in diameter, the tree is listed in the National Register of Big Trees. Notre Dame’s campus also has a long history of maples on campus. Fr. Sorin hoped to parallel both sides of Notre Dame's Avenue with "a stately, straight range of white cedars" in order to create an evergreen entrance to the university. He ultimately settled, however, for a hardwood corridor, first of red oaks, then of sugar maples. Today, the maples lining Notre Dame Avenue are one of the first sights to greet campus visitors. A wider variety of maple trees, such as red, sugar, Norway, and hybrid mixes, create a path down Notre Dame Avenue, almost reaching the Main Building.