It's been a couple weeks on the new urban forest inventory job, and today when a friendly (and somewhat knowledgeable) resident asked about how the inventory was going, I vaguely replied: "oh, it's been really interesting!"
And of course, she asked, "what's been really interesting?"
Stumped, (pardon the pun), I said something lame like "well, there are a lot of trees that I've never seen before... weird maples", when REALLY, I should have said: "Some people are in tree denial."
It is very interesting.
People that, I know for a fact, have trees in their backyard sometimes tell me that they don't. Are they trying to hide them? Or do they not realize that dogwood, serviceberry, cedar, buckthorn, manitoba maple, redbud, and japanese maple are trees? So strange. English oaks, mulberries, hawthorns. Trees are all around us! We're living in a forest! (Even though much of it looks like an out-of-control shrubbery!)
Which leads me to the point that accidental trees are still trees, and in an urban forest sometimes we must take what we can get. Let me introduce my nemesis, the Manitoba Maple.
You can identify these guys quite easily: you know how a "Canada flag" maple has five main parts ("lobes")? A Manitoba Maple has three. The leaf of a Manitoba Maple is actually divided into three "leaflets" - you will almost always find these leaflets in groups of three. Sometimes the leaflets mutate and may join together into a Frankenleaf, and sometimes young or lower leaves do not develop the three distinct lobes that Manitoba Maples usually have. If you're not sure, double check the leaves on another part of the tree.
Oh yeah - why do I consider the Manitoba Maple (Acer negundo) my nemesis?
Because they propagate like rabbits and leave these little guys all around:
Last year I put a badminton net up in the yard under my Manitoba Maple and every time someone lost a point they would have to pull out a minimum of ten wayward seedlings.
It's not that these trees are evil, but where they grow, very little native sun-loving vegetation has a chance of surviving. Manitoba Maples just happen to be invasive around these parts. They really like it here. Good for them.
We'll have to truce for now, though, because they really do make up a lot of our urban forest!
