Do you know how to tell a red maple from a sugar maple? Granted, it's harder to do in winter, but it's hard now, too. I paraded around the woods today with thumbtacks to label trees we might tap, staring up 75 feet and pondering: Is that a curved sinus? Are there really five lobes, or did a caterpillar chew the side? I could look at leaves on the ground, but I'm never quite sure if leaf A derived from tree A or B or maybe blew over from C. The only tree I am pretty sure about is the one that turns scarlet earlier than any of the others. It's a red maple. I think.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Looking Up Trees
Do you know how to tell a red maple from a sugar maple? Granted, it's harder to do in winter, but it's hard now, too. I paraded around the woods today with thumbtacks to label trees we might tap, staring up 75 feet and pondering: Is that a curved sinus? Are there really five lobes, or did a caterpillar chew the side? I could look at leaves on the ground, but I'm never quite sure if leaf A derived from tree A or B or maybe blew over from C. The only tree I am pretty sure about is the one that turns scarlet earlier than any of the others. It's a red maple. I think.
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2 comments:
Actually, I think swamp maple turns red early -- it's the one in the depressions and along the open marshes as you drive about, and was red almost a month ago in spots.
Swamp maple = red maple!
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