So much beauty in West End gardens
Directions
After enjoying the willows for two blocks turn right on to Barclay Street and you will bump straight into our next featured tree. These line both sides of the sidewalk for the next two blocks. These are incredible trees for a number of reason, but the way they have been pruned over the years has resulted in the most interesting branching formations. The number and size of the trees when in leaf create dark tunnels of green. Our next feature tree is the Cappadocian Maple.
Look up and down Barclay there are loads of them!
Cappadocian Maple
Proper Name: Acer cappadocicum
Common Name: Cappadocian Maple
Description:
A medium sized tree instantly recognisable as having the maple shaped leaf. Botanist describe this shape a palmately (like the palm of a hand) lobed with 5-7 lobes. Lobes are the in and out bits. A good way to identify this type of maple is to break off a leaf as inside the stem you will find a milky fluid (latex). Yellowy-green flowers come in the spring before the familiar samara (little boomerang) fruit appears. The bark is greenish-grey.
Defining Feature: The maple leaf and samara are distinctive (see other walks for details) but you can’t miss the trees on this street because of the amazing branching formations from the trunk (see image below). They are all the way up and down on both sides creating incredible shapes.
