Wednesday Street Tree #9
Norway maple
One of the most common species you are likely to encounter growing as a street tree pretty much anywhere in the UK, is the sturdy Norway maple in one of its many guises. There are dozens of cultivars including deeply cut-leaved types, purple-leaved and variegated forms, fastigiate varieties and others with more-or-less densely foliaged crowns. This one might be the ‘Cleveland’ cultivar which has a dense upright crown, but there are other similar cultivars too, but, let’s go with Cleveland for convenience!
Norway maples are popular for their fairly good autumn colour, attractive spiky leaf shape, and lovely acid green flowers in the spring which appear before the leaves. Those leaves are similar to those of the sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus), another commonly (self) planted maple, but Norway’s are spikier, and the bark differs too. Norway maples have furrowed bark, while that of a mature sycamore is darker and consists of plates.
What is it?
Norway maple
Acer platanoides ‘Cleveland’
Where is it?
Blackstock Road, London N4 2JW
///chef.moons.trim | 51.562055, -0.100091
A good familiar staple. Autumn colour in my area has been low but on a trip today, nearly every spot of colour was Norway maple or field maple.