MAY 16: Mother Maple Tree
“I am going to tell you,” said the old maple tree, “a little family history. We belong to the Sugar Maple family. Our trees are often used in making furniture, and our sap gives wondrous maple sugar which boys and girls and ladies and gentlemen love so much!
“And when autumn comes we all dress up in the most wonderful costumes of red and orange and flaming gold. But we will not talk about autumn quite yet.
“The work for us to do now is to see that each leaf grows to be as big and beautiful as possible. For we have been known as one of the nicest of shade trees. We keep the sun from shining down too hard on people during the hot summer months. We make shady avenues and streets and driveways.
“Mr. Sun is a perfectly splendid old chap, but in the summer he gets so excited that he is very warm, indeed, and the people love the shade we can give. So you see, leaves, you must not be lazy!”
The leaves rustled and shook their heads. “No, Mother Maple, we will not be lazy.”
“We have many cousins,” continued Mother Maple. “There is Cousin Sycamore Maple whose family comes from far away. Cousin Sycamore is not very strong and its flowers are late in coming out. Now Cousin Norway Maple is quite different. A fine strong tree Cousin Norway is, and a tree that doesn’t mind soot and dust and smoke or insects. Many of Cousin Norway’s children are planted in city streets where there is a great deal of smoke.
“There is Cousin Box Elder which is a relation because it has clusters of ‘keys’ or seeds, which hang on all winter.
“Cousin Striped Maple is very beautiful with its streaked white lines. In the winter oftentimes its bark is used by boys for whistles and in the autumn Cousin Striped Maple is yellow and very handsome.
“As for Mr. Mountain Maple—well, Cousin Mountain is so named because upon all mountains the Mountain Maple loves to grow and Cousin Vine Maple is so named because it hasn’t the strength to stand up by itself and its stems are like vines.
“Cousin Silver Maple is very beautiful but is not strong enough to stand the city. Cousin Silver likes parks which are given over to trees and greens and plants.
“And then there are the red maple and the black maple. Cousin Black Maple is almost exactly like us, but its branches are orange colored and its ‘keys’ spread more widely than ours do.
“Cousin Red Maple loves the swamps and is a beautiful tree, as are all his children, but I’m glad we belong to the Sugar Maple family.”
“So are we, Mother Maple,” said the leaves, as they all promised to be good and beautiful and strong.