Red Maple
by Kathy Bassett
Title
Red Maple
Artist
Kathy Bassett
Medium
Photograph - Photography
Description
A beautiful country day, mellow and radiant. Such a grand view of things.
“Red Maples” fall into two basic groups. The first grouping is Native Maples consisting of Red Maple and Freeman’s Maple, a lesser known native maple that grows in parts of southern Ontario. Both species have green leaves throughout the summer months and attractive fall foliage with colours ranging from yellows to orange-red and red. The second group is a collection of “red-leaved” cultivars of the non-native Norway maple that have showy burgundy to reddish-purple leaves all summer long. Their fall colour is unimpressive. These groups are distinctly different.True red maples (Acer rubrum) are impressive shade trees that grow to a height of 16 metres with a spread of 15 meters. Some get much larger. Red maple gets its name from the clusters of small, red buds and flowers that appear on the tree in early spring. The flowers become reddish-green winged fruits (samaras) by early-May. The fruit matures in mid to late-May and is used as a food source by some wildlife.
The brightly coloured leaves begin to unfurl shortly after clusters of yellow flowers appear in spring. The flowers become reddish-purple samaras with horizontally spreading wings by late summer. Crimson King Maples have a dense maroon red foliage all summer. The fall colour is a dull brownish-yellow.
Uploaded
October 7th, 2019
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