Sugar Maple (Acer saccharum). Native to eastern Canada and eastern United States. It is a tree that prefers the higher, and cooler, elevations here in central Virginia, further up than here where I live. We did plant a few Sugar Maple trees several years ago though, and they seem to be quite happy. It is their seeds that need that extra boost of cold.
This is a tree that is sensitive to pollution, more so that other species of maple. Maple decline can be blamed on acid rain and soil acidification.
A tree that puts on a great color show late in the autumn. This picture was taken yesterday.
_______________________
If you would like to receive my daily blog posts by email, sign up here!
Aubade with Sugar Maple
When the hard edges of the book
that sang me to sleep woke me
I assumed thoughts of all I hadn’t accomplished
weren’t far behind, the people I disappointed,
the money I hadn’t made,
the power structure I’d rarely opposed.
But instead I found myself greeted
by an almost criminal hope, somehow free
of the social order that had shaped
my mind so that by the time the sun peeked in
and the huge sugar maple that filled my window
spoke, the only thing I questioned
was the forty hour work-week, why the French
and Italians got eight weeks vacation.
Because it’s been what – a million years?
And yet somehow that maple knew me. We talked
and talked until I became birched and oaked,
crabappled and cherries – drunk
with all the tree-ness I’d forgotten.
My God, to think – I could bud, even blossom.
-Valencia Robin
Oh my goodness! How wonderful! Thank you so very much for sharing this Mark. I love it!
And thanks so much for reading my posts!
Bren