Monday 5 December 2011

Japanese Maple

Botanical name - Acer palmatum atropurpureum



I fell in love with this tree.  I love these red/purple foliage. They look so elegant.   Not just the colour, look at the beautiful shape of the leaf.  There were so many that we saw on our trip to the UK.   I read that most of the year through the leaves are this lovely colour, but there were some who mention that they are green in summer.  We were there in June, so I cannot really be sure if these leaves were green at all.


There was also this lovely tree (below) - it does not look the same - that we saw from our boat as we cruised along the Loch Goile in Scotland.  What a magnificent tree!



The first two trees were identified by Justin Davis.

I think the main reason some of our trees do not look this lovely are our overhead cables.  Someone is always cutting the branches of our trees unless they are really in the wild.  If they were left to grow without the roots entangled in a concrete mass and branches away from the overhead poles and wires, our trees would have so much more character!

4 comments:

  1. very nice pictures. and you are right, the poor trees in our neck of the woods are never allowed to grow well as their branches are always being chopped off in a lopsided fashion.

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  2. HAPPY NEW YEAR! You're so right about the cables. Every year when the Flame trees are in bloom I walk about with my camera but it's always hard to get a good shot because half the time I am wondering how to get the cables out of range. These are beautiful pictures, unhindered by man-made ugliness.

    Thank you for your comment. I'm looking forward to your posts too!:)

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  3. I just love them. Incidentally and very recently I came across a tree with bewitching fragrant flowers known as "Maple leaved Bayur".

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  4. I love Maples too, particularly the Japanese maples. They come in so many leaf shapes and sizes, and growing up on the West Coast of BC we had many lovely varieties in the yard. Here is a link to a site that shows just a few of the different kinds they cultivate.
    http://www.thehoneytreenursery.com/Japanese-Maples.php

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