The tipping point for me came at breakfast the other morning, when I noticed that Post Foods Canada Inc., on its Shredded Wheat cereal box, boasts, “Prepared in Canada” – next to a rendering of a red Norway maple leaf.
Moosehead, a lager brewed in Saint John, trumpets on its beer cases: “Founded in 1867, we were born with Canada,” below a drawing of what can only be a Norway maple leaf. Canada Post has featured Norway maple leaves on its stamps. Treasury slipped up and printed King George III on the dollar bill, instead of George Washington, because they wore similar hair.Ĭanada’s central bank has plenty of company. The Bank of Canada raised ire years ago when purists noticed that the new polymer banknotes featured Norway maple leaves. Look around you, and you’ll notice the Norway maple has opened another front in this conflict: taking root as the default image on countless products of companies which, inadvertently it seems, adopt the usurper as a symbol of their Canadian bona fides. But graphic designers are not helping matters. Dalhousie University have sought to banish the tree from its campus the City of Montreal has targeted Norway maples for removal on Mount Royal in New York, Central Park Conservancy gardeners pull up seedlings when they spot them. In a crowning indignity, the leaves of green Norway maples do not turn red in the fall typically they develop black spots before they turn yellow and fall off.Ĭampaigns to repel the invader abound. Studies show that native insects, birds and mammals do not thrive in Norway maple forests, which become green deserts. In its shade, other species, such as native oaks, pines or maples, cannot establish themselves or grow. The tree takes over forests, spreading thick leaves that open first and fall last.
Much too late, planners discovered the troubling truth: the Norway maple is an aggressive invader. City forestry departments across North America planted Norways for decades because the species, known by the Latin name Acer platanoides, tolerates concrete, soil compaction, pollution, salt and other indignities of urban life. The Norway maple is a hardy tree that thrives much better than our domestic sugar maple in harsh urban conditions. Peter Kuitenbrouwer is a journalist and holds a master’s degree in forest conservation from the University of Toronto.
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