The Canada Tree

This tree was planted for a flag, and it may be the wrong species for the flag. A maple went into Canadaplein in 1947 alongside a memorial by the sculptor Gustaaf Pickery, commemorating the liberation of Bruges by Canadian forces, and the heritage inventory says the species was picked because a maple leaf appears on the Canadian flag. Which maple is where it gets awkward. The inventory's own description calls the tree a suikeresdoorn, the Dutch name for sugar maple, Acer saccharum, which is the maple of the emblem. Its species field says Acer saccharinum, silver maple, a different tree from different ground. Both sit in the same record and nobody has reconciled them. This page follows the scientific name, which leaves a silver maple standing in for a sugar maple on a square named after Canada. The tree is not troubled by any of this. The inventory puts it at 244 centimetres round and 20 metres tall, with damage recorded low on the trunk. Silver maple grows fast and turns the pale undersides of its leaves up at the smallest wind, which is the easiest way to pick it out from the far side of the square. If you can settle which maple this actually is, tell us and we will correct it.