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Big Leaf Maple. Acer macrophyllum, for you plant aficionados. A pretty straight forward common name for a tree. It is big. It has leaves. It is a Maple.
You won't find them in the nurseries or boutique plant stores in the Pacific Northwest. Why bother? Plant snobs don't like them. They are everywhere. They drop stuff. Leaf cases. Pollen. Catkins. Leaves. Helicopter-like seed pods. Branches. Whole trunks.
The forest canopy in any low land forest on the wet side of the Cascades is made up of conifers like the Douglas Fir, Western Hemlock and Western Red Cedars and the deciduous trees like Alder, Willow, Cottonwood, and the occasional oddity like the evergreen (but also always shedding) Madrona that does not have needles like the evergreens. But that is another story.
I love the Big Leaf Maple.
Springtime's last bare branches to be clothed is the Big Leaf Maple. Their peridot leaves uncurl like the scarfed skirts of ballroom dances. They cast an odd green light on the forest paths of the PNW. They tilt at crazy angles on high bank beaches of the Puget Sound and became my early life jungle gyms where I spent glorious summer days. I was Rima of Rimoloma in them, communing with bird, squirrel, cat and dog life. They provide temporary umbrellas from hot summer sun or rain squalls blown up from points South.
The Wauna-area maples dress in acid green chenille moss and accessorize with licorice fern. Their thin-tipped branches were my drinking straws when I camped. I'd find branches the trees shedded the previous year and drill out the marshmallow-like centers and peel off the thin strips of bark. (It occurs to me as I reread this, that my blog is Maple-colored.)
In early fall their enormous leaves slowly take on a pale to canary yellow and briefly, the celedon saltwater is littered with golden fairy boats drifting out with the tide.
Now the maples are stripped bare from the two wild windstorms we had early this month, and I look forward to reclining on my chenille beach chair next summer and look through the shuffled layers of green while the Wauna dog searches for beach jerky.
You won't find them in the nurseries or boutique plant stores in the Pacific Northwest. Why bother? Plant snobs don't like them. They are everywhere. They drop stuff. Leaf cases. Pollen. Catkins. Leaves. Helicopter-like seed pods. Branches. Whole trunks.
The forest canopy in any low land forest on the wet side of the Cascades is made up of conifers like the Douglas Fir, Western Hemlock and Western Red Cedars and the deciduous trees like Alder, Willow, Cottonwood, and the occasional oddity like the evergreen (but also always shedding) Madrona that does not have needles like the evergreens. But that is another story.
I love the Big Leaf Maple.
Springtime's last bare branches to be clothed is the Big Leaf Maple. Their peridot leaves uncurl like the scarfed skirts of ballroom dances. They cast an odd green light on the forest paths of the PNW. They tilt at crazy angles on high bank beaches of the Puget Sound and became my early life jungle gyms where I spent glorious summer days. I was Rima of Rimoloma in them, communing with bird, squirrel, cat and dog life. They provide temporary umbrellas from hot summer sun or rain squalls blown up from points South.
The Wauna-area maples dress in acid green chenille moss and accessorize with licorice fern. Their thin-tipped branches were my drinking straws when I camped. I'd find branches the trees shedded the previous year and drill out the marshmallow-like centers and peel off the thin strips of bark. (It occurs to me as I reread this, that my blog is Maple-colored.)
In early fall their enormous leaves slowly take on a pale to canary yellow and briefly, the celedon saltwater is littered with golden fairy boats drifting out with the tide.
Now the maples are stripped bare from the two wild windstorms we had early this month, and I look forward to reclining on my chenille beach chair next summer and look through the shuffled layers of green while the Wauna dog searches for beach jerky.
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