Some time ago I found a website where a person described how they had begun to appreciate the huge Silver Maples in their community for their shade under the hot Prairie Summer Sun- even though they had always disliked (rarely for a Tree) Silver Maples.
How can anyone not love Silver Maples!
I had long fallen in love with big Maples, and the Silver Maple has everything I love about big Maples- those magnificent soft, rugged, warm, ragged-but-right, practically mythic Trunks!
How I would love to be in the presence of those magnificent soft, rugged, grand, magnificently strong Trunks! And Branches!
Each species of big Maple- indeed, each magnificent individual- is unique, and all of them have these magnificent Trunks, but in different ways- Red Maples, especially some in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, mainly because I have until very recently never seen up-close photos (especially with humans to show scale) of others... but now I have, and the others are magnificent- just as much as the Smokies Maples!
One Smoky Mountains Red Maple is seven-plus feet across and 141 feet tall! But the otherworldly, primordial Rainforest beauty of the base of Her Trunk is beyond description- and so is the sight of Her mighty, columnar Trunk soaring into the Sky- big Smokies Trees tend to have huge, tall, column-like Trunks!
Maples of the magnificent Eastern North American Forests- Red Maples, Sugar Maples, Silver Maples- including ones in the Prairie Forests in cities and along Rivers! Norway and Sycamore Maples in Europe, a gorgeous Persian (or Velvet) Maple in Persia on Monumentaltrees.com- the only one I've seen- and the immense, gorgeous, Rainforest-looking Bigleaf Maple of the Pacific Northwest (and parts of California)- they all have their own special form of these magnificent, grand, ragged-yet-right soft yet rugged Trunks I love so much!
Another Eastern Maple that sometimes gets really big is the Black Maple, and they too are gorgeous!
Silver Maples are especially big (only the Bigleaf Maple is bigger) and monumental, and magnificently organic, with gorgeous, incredibly grand curves in their Trunk and huge, gorgeous Branches... but ALL of these species have their own special 'take' on it!!!
But of course big Maples aren't the only ones with gorgeous, unique living works of Art in their grand Trunks- the Basswood and Bur Oak, with their often massive, almost Redwood-like column-like Trunks, to mention two from the North American East (look up kywilderness.com Largest Basswood in the USA for these!), and the huge, graceful, rugged Tulip Tree (or Yellow Poplar or Tulip Poplar), the Cottonwoods, the magnificent European Oaks, the Asian Camphor Tree (a recent discovery for me!)- well, you get the idea.
Don't forget to look for pictures of these Trees- and if you get a chance to visit and hug a Tree like this, don't miss out!
David S. Annderson
And if you want more on great Trees, view or download (for free!) Life in the Temperate Rainforest from my main site at sites.google.com/site/davidannfreestories, or just search 'davidannfreestories', all one word. Have fun!
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