Check out this album if you got a minute and tell me if any of these aren't sugar maples. I can't be sure. I want to tap them for sap/syrup next winter. If they aren't exactly sugar maples, can I still tap them? I've heard that there is less sugar content in the sap. Will that mean a taste change or simply the amount of water I'll have to evaporate to get X amount of syrup?

Here's the album. I just randomly selected 2 leaves so you could see the tops and bottoms. If you see no leaves, it will be on the next photo of the canopy (I couldn't reach the leaves.)

https://plus.google.com/photos/107262559032876162394/albums/6037453734737068209

Thought sugar maples were somewhat rare in Missouri. No one I know taps or talks about it...

Looks like sugar maple to me. Sugar maples will probably grow in mature forests or ravines as an understory tree in Missouri, if it is like prairie edge in Ohio.

All maples are tap-able, but taste and amounts will be different. I think sugar maple does 2x as much as any other though.

You can tap any kind of maple. I never notice much difference in the sugar content when I'm boiling, it all taste like syrup at the end of the day.

I think what you may have is the black maple (A. nigrum), a close relative of sugar maple of more midwestern distribution. The bark is darker and the leaves more three-lobed than five, and a bit droopy. It's so close they cross, and some consider it a subspecies. So it should be just as useful for syrup, provided the weather cooperates.