Maple sugar

Maple sugar is a traditional sweetener in Canada and the northeastern United States, prepared from the sap of the maple tree . Three species of maple trees in the genus Acer are predominantly used to produce maple sugar: the sugar maple (A. saccharum), the black maple (A. nigrum), and the red maple (A. rubrum),[full citation needed] because of the high sugar content (roughly two to five percent) in the sap of these species.[full citation needed] The black maple is included as a subspecies or variety in a more broadly viewed concept of A. saccharum, the sugar maple, by some botanists. Of these, the red maple has a shorter season because it buds earlier than sugar and black maples, which alters the flavor of the sap. A few other species of maple are also sometimes used as sources of sap for producing maple sugar, including the box elder (or Manitoba maple, A. negundo), the silver maple (A. saccharinum), and the bigleaf maple (A. macrophyllum). Similar sugars may also be produced from birch or palm trees, among other sources.

Source: Wikipedia