If you have friends and family staying over Christmas and New Year and are looking for a different place to walk or cycle in Cambridge, try the Maple Arboretum.
Accessed at the end of Tiaki Way (off Thornton Road) the track winds between groups of maples from different parts of the world. All 30-plus varieties are named and have been planted over the past seven years by the Cambridge Tree Trust, the younger ones being at the south east end of the arboretum, and the older ones at the northwest end, near the green bridge. They vary from large shrubs to what will eventually be tall trees, and are gradually being underplanted with violets, hellebores and Japanese anemones.
The taller ones are mainly from North America; these include various forms of the red swamp maple, Acer rubrum (at their most spectacular in autumn), the sugar maple, A. saccharum, from which maple syrup is obtained, and not to be confused with A.saccharinum, or silver maple, which has a very attractive large leaf with a silver back.
From Europe and Türkiye come the purple sycamore, the field maple and the Cappadocian maple. By far the greatest number however are from Asia. From Japan come various forms of the well-known A. palmatum including purple, weeping and coral-barked varieties, and also the beautiful A.capillipes (red snake-bark maple) and A. myabei (corky-barked maple) from Hokkaido.
From China we have A. fabri, an unusual evergreen maple (unfortunately hit hard by the late October frost), the delicate A. pentaphyllum (five-fingered maple), the unique A. griseum with bronze peeling bark, the elegant A. pubinerve with lovely arching branches, and many, many more.
- This column runs in the Cambridge News thanks to the support of Mitre 10 Cambridge.
