Saturday, April 22, 2006

Weekend Photoblogging


Check out those nectar disks!!!
Originally uploaded by urtica.

Anyone who thinks Norway maple (Acer platanoides) is still just a street tree in the U.S. should check out Massachusetts right now. The Norways can easily be spotted because of their flower clusters, which form a sickly green aura around the branches (one commenter calls it chartreuse but I am not feeling that kind). Over the decades, Norway maples have managed to find their way not only into suburban wooded areas, but also into true deciduous forests, where they have been shown to inhibit the regeneration of the native forest canopy.

2 comments:

Katie said...

Wow! Beautiful picture. Great post!

Anonymous said...

I once visited a site just west of Worcester with the Massachusetts Invasive Plant Advisory Group where the entire understory was Norwar Maple. Eve more disturbing was the advanced age of these small diameter trees - cores showed more than 40 growth rings on trees of about 4" dbh. A break in the canopy, one of those Worcester wind events, is all it will take to release them to overall dominance.