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Introducing Essa's Outstanding Trees

 

AWARE Essa would like you to meet our favourite trees in Essa township. Whether on urban streets or rural landscapes or in our own backyards, trees are so familiar that it's easy to take them for granted. But they are so important it's worth taking a closer look. Trees need to be protected and preserved, but most of all enjoyed. If you have a favourite tree, new or old, let us know and we'll add it to our collection of outstanding trees.

Let's put Essa's trees on the map!

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Sugar Maple

Acer saccharum

Still Standing

This photograph of a sugar maple on the grounds of Baxter Central Public School was part of a project called Teen Photo Voice sponsored by Essa Township.  The student photographer wrote:

  • Climbing trees is fun

  • Trees and shade for play

  • Survived even though the old schoolhouse didn't

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Location: Lat 44.24616N  Long  79.87475W

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About Sugar Maples

Over the centuries, the sugar maple has become a Canadian icon in spite of the fact that the American range of this tree is about double that of Canada. It appears on the coats of arms of Ontario and Quebec, as a military badge on World War I uniforms, as inspiration for the poem "The Maple Leaf Forever" and in the name of a Toronto hockey team. In 1965 the maple leaf appeared at the centre of the new Canadian flag. Finally in 1996, the maple genus was proclaimed Canada's national arboreal emblem.

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The sugar maple is universally valued as the source of maple syrup, boiled from the sap of the tree in early spring. Everything from bowling pins to canoe paddles to gymnasium floors has been made from the durable wood of sugar maples.

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Sugar maples can live from 130 to 300 years and thrive in deep, moist, fertile soil away from pollutants.

                       ~information from An Eclectic Guide to Trees East of the Rockies, Glen Blouin

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Scotch Line Maples

Rows of stately old sugar maples border this rural road in the south of Essa, making it feel like a landscape from long ago. A perfect place for cycling.

Location: Lat  44.20323 N  Long  79.87475 W

RIPPON TRAIL Maple

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This sugar maple stands in the middle of the Rippon Trail, about halfway along the trail.  The trunk is much taller and the canopy higher because it grew up in the middle of a forest

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