The continuing "Landchovy" chronicles

( cut for the protection of people who are sick of reading about terrestrial flatworms )

365 Urban Species. #292: Sugar Maple

Photos by cottonmanifesto. The maple foliage in a playground in Coolidge Corner, Brookline, seems to be bursting into flame.

Urban species #292: Sugar maple Acer saccharum

Sugar maples are the glory of the northeastern deciduous forest. With autumnal colors of vivid orange, blood red, and flames of yellow they glow amidst the ochre ashes and birches, and deep greens of the pines. Unfortunately, they do not survive the rigors of city life very well. Traffic compresses the soil around their roots, depriving them of water, soot clogs the pores of their leaves, and opportunistic wood decay fungi move in to claim weakened limbs. Most of the sugar maples in walking distance from my house are showing visible signs of decline. But their popularity shows no signs of flagging, and they continue to be chosen for city parks and streets, beginning to die almost as soon as they are dropped into their root holes. Sugar maples are sensitive to heat, as well, and cities are warmer year-round than the surrounding countryside. The man-made increase in temperature may drive the range of sugar maples north, out of the United States. The sugar maple's leaf on the flag of Canada will gain new meaning.

Ironically, there are more sugar maples in North America today than there were before European colonization. When Europeans learned that these beautiful trees could be induced to bleed sweet syrup in wintertime (actually, its sap must be evaporated to about one fortieth of its original volume to become syrup), they planted thousands in the forests of New England. The majority of sugar maples alive today are the offspring of trees planted by humans. In parts of the city where the sugar maple has enough soil for its roots, they provide shade in summer, a welcome burst of color in autumn, and austere beauty in winter.



A young sugar maple photographed in September, in Olmsted Park, beginning to change.

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