The Norway Maple of Herrnstraße

Munich protects this maple for being big, which says more about the species than about the tree. Acer platanoides is among the most planted street trees in Europe and among the most frequently cut back: fast, cheap, tolerant of road salt, compacted soil and bad air, and generally treated as replaceable. The city's 2021 natural monument ordinance takes the opposite line here, entering it as stadtbildwirksam, effective in the townscape, and rare at this size within the city. That is a statute saying a common tree becomes an uncommon one simply by being left alone. It stands on Herrnstraße in the Lehel, the grid of tall nineteenth century blocks laid out between the old town wall and the Isar when Munich first built beyond its gates. This is dense inner city: courtyards, parked cars, five storeys on both sides, and one crown holding the middle of it. If you want to be certain what you are looking at, snap a leaf stalk. A Norway maple bleeds white, and the sycamore it is constantly mistaken for does not. In April it flowers before it leafs, and the bare crown turns acid yellow-green for a fortnight. The ordinance records why a tree is protected and never when it was planted. No dated source exists for this one, so how long it has stood here is not known.