In a farmer's field, showing growth habit in fairly open conditions. Breaking older limbs drop at times during high winds, or often the limb hangs up in the tree and falls later. Best grown well distanced from buildings and electrical wires. Falling seeds can plug rain gutters. Locally recommended as a replacement tree for city lots , don't know why. H 75'-80' x W 60' {H 25m. x W 20m.}. Pic 1 taken Oct 13/07. Pics 2 - Oct.24/07, tree in seed and another maple showing where a large branch broke off. Pic 3 bark.
You can't really tell from the photo, but this leaf from an Acer macrophyllum at the UBC Botanical Garden David C Lam Garden was about 23 inches in diameter (58cm). I saw it on the Greenheart Canopy Walkway today. Not all the leaves on that tree were that size by any means, but there were several large ones. That was just one I could touch and do a hand measurement on. By the way, the common name for these is generally bigleaf maple, but the Trees of Reed (Reed College in Portland, Oregon) gives as another common name Oregon Maple.
Generally most maples, Japanese included, seem to be colouring up about 7- 10 days ,and you could say peaking, later than last year here with brilliant fall colours. Photos Oct.26/08.
Same here. We normally will be done and the leaves off the trees by Halloween. This year it looks like we'll be peaking at Halloween.
I had just yesterday afternoon spent some time wondering how many trees I was looking at here in Stanley Park above Ceperley playground, and then last night at the guided tree walk, I learned about coppicing (where new shoots emerge around a tree that's been cut down), and that maple coppices are quite common. The example on the walk was a big-leaf maple, and so is this one.
It's not as if this Stanley Park Acer macrophyllum didn't have enough room to develop a nice full shape, but it seems to have decided against it.
Looks like it was probably shaded by some other trees to one side, which were subsequently removed. Also looks like it's had some branches broken and/or pruned off in the past.
Pruning cuts visible in photo. Also, species often rots out with age yet continues growing, with vigorous new growth in some parts and dead stubs in others. I've seen it rooting into its own dead and decayed heartwood. During recent weeks multiple local examples are displaying a severe blighting back of branches, marked by yellow and then brown leaves. Other patches are showing much mildewing of the leaves.
I don't know maples well enough to suggest that Acer macrophyllum may be the most floriferous but it surely must be a contender. The chartreuse-yellow of the flowers is stunning especially when you see trees in the distance spotted throughout Douglas Fir woods - and especially on a sunny day. It looks to me like this grouping of Big Leaf Maples in bloom may originate from an older tree that was cut down. It's hard to find a BLM all on its own that you can photograph in its entirety. However, if you happen to live on Vancouver Island, there are 2 magnificent Big Leaf Maples behind the Fanny Bay Inn. Close-up photo of flowers is from Acer macrophyllum | Landscape Plants | Oregon State University .
Beauty! I don't know how long-lived BLM are considered to be. Someone nearby told me that an old tree with a trunk 5-feet across, died after many years gracing their gorgeous garden.
BLM can live for a few hundred years. But it does depend on environmental positioning. Looking at that quiet leafy lane Margot, it's going to be there for a very long time. Love those yellows and the Autumn it gets better.
