Chinese paperbark maple autumn full#

Pre-Columbian pottery or Chinese foot-binding,Ībove the collar of your impeccable blouse. The play of light in Dutch Renaissance painting Oh, I could walk any aisleĪnd smell wisdom, put a hand out to touch The path of Harold’s purple crayon through I could follow, step-by-step, the slow disclosure There were equations elegant as a French twist, What vast tristesse was born of rush-hour traffic,ĭecolletes, and the plague of too much money.Īnd the place of women in the tribe of Moost. It actually made me tear up, this poem: partly because I remember the sheer excitement of a library, and partly because of the destruction of the library system in the UK which means that so many children will never experience that excitement.

I know that you’ll all have some native trees where the bark peels, but why? I know we won’t get to the bottom of it here, but it’s always good to ponder.Īnd finally, a somewhat tangential poem.

Chinese paperbark maple autumn full#

In that case, why doesn’t it happen to all trees? And why doesn’t it stop when the tree reaches its full height? Let me know what you think, readers. So, who knows? One explanation that I have rejected for ‘my’ tree, as I’ve come to think of it, is that the bark cracks and peels as the tree grows, a bit like an insect growing out of its exoskeleton. It can also deter climbers and epiphytes. Yet another is that trees at high altitudes actually have their bark damaged by the UV light from intense sunshine, and also that they might suffer frost damage, so getting rid of damaged bark makes sense. However, it seems unlikely that a tree that evolved in China’s mountains would be doing the same thing.Īnother possible explanation is that the exfoliation helps the tree to rid itself of unwanted parasites and fungi. In this species, the loss of bark is thought to be a way of getting rid of accumulated toxins from pollution, although in the very hot summer a few years ago I noticed that the plane trees were losing much more bark than usual, possibly from stress. Why, though, would a tree lose its bark in this way? Many trees do this, the most familiar to us Londoners being the London Plane tree (Platanus x hispanica). Paperbark Maple autumn colour (Photo One) I wonder if it’s the difficulty in propagation that results in this amazing tree not being planted more often? In spring, the leaves are dark green above, but decidedly furry underneath. The leaflets are arranged in threes, as are the flowers (which turn into the typical maple ‘keys’). The bark isn’t the end of the story with Paperbark Maple, however: in autumn, the leaves flush orange/red. It’s quite something to find an endangered plant growing in a suburban street. This is not purely to enhance North American trees, either – the plant is considered endangered by the IUCN, with the populations in China increasingly fragmented and threatened. It is a difficult plant to cultivate – a lot of the fruits that develop are seedless ( a phenomenon known as parthenocarpy, another new word!), and a joint American/Chinese expedition met up in China in 2015 to try to collect seeds to improve the genetic diversity of the plants in cultivation. It was introduced to Europe in 1901, and to North America shortly afterwards: apparently only two trees reached the US, and all paperbark maples in the country are descended from this pair of trees. Paperbark maple is a long way from home, though – a native of China, it’s usually found at altitudes of 1,500 to 2,000 metres. It’s also a tree that’s happy on clay soil (which is basically what London sits on). In his book ‘London’s Street Trees’, Paul Wood describes Paperbark Maple as ‘occasionally planted’, but it seems like a good choice to me – the trunk is the one thing that everybody sees, and so you don’t even have to look up to be impressed. While the bark reminds me slightly of when I got sunburn as a child, it’s also a quite extraordinary effect.

This peeling bark first appears when the tree is 6 or 7 years old, and continues for the rest of the plant’s life. The effect was even more impressive when I looked up at the branches. As you can see, it has bark that peels away in tissue-thin layers of of coral and blush pink. Dear Readers, I was so taken with this Paperbark Maple, spotted in East Finchley earlier this week, that I had to find out a bit more about it.