SHADES OF MAPLE:THE FLOWERS
The Monday Garden, Eco-gardening at its best
May 8, 2005, Issue 163
Yes, Virginia, trees flower. While tree flowers are a source of much of the misery of spring allergies, the flowers, together with the buds, can be the most beautiful parts of the tree. The maple clan has some of the most beautiful and distinctive flowers in “treedom”.
Spring bloom order: First, while there’s still snow in the shadows, the pom-poms of silver maples appear to feed our precious early-waking pollinators. The silvers are closely followed by their close cousins, the red maples. Then, 2 or 3 weeks later, mid spring is announced by the breathtakingly beautiful but horribly destructive invasive lime green Norway maples; their colors perfectly accenting all of the other spring flowers. After that, in late April – early May the elegant, lordly sugar maples, the box elders (the curious ash-like, compound-leaf maple), and the attractive but invasive sycamore maples bloom at about the same time.
Picture: Norway maple flowers beginning to close as they age, Strawberry Hill, Stamford CT April 2005
Each of the maples has a distinct flower, except, of course, the reds and the silvers which I suspect interbreed for the sole reason of driving botanists crazy.