Effect:
cooling, anti-inflammatory, antipyretic
Areas of application:
Wounds, bruises, sunburn, insect bites, inflammation, fever
Parts of the plant used:
Leaves, bark
Collection time:
Spring to autumn
Can be found:
On streets, parks and avenues, sometimes in gardens.
Ingredients:
Minerals
Other:
The Norway maple is a summer green, broad-crowned deciduous tree that can reach a height of 20 to 30 meters, rarely over 35 meters. The trunk diameter reaches over 60 centimeters, rarely over 1.7 meters. It can live for around 150 to a maximum of 200 years. Its bark is smooth and pale brown when young. When older, the bark is dark brown to gray with a longitudinally cracked ribbed structure; it does not come off scaly or flat like the sycamore maple. If the leaves or young branches are injured, milky sap comes out. The leaf buds of the Norway maple have wine-red and bare bud scales. They are 3 to 10 millimeters long. The terminal buds are narrow to broadly ovate and larger than the lateral buds. The lateral buds are narrowly ovate with a pointed upper end. They lie against the branch and are arranged decussately. The leaves, which are arranged opposite each other on the branches, are divided into a petiole and a leaf blade. The petiole is grooved, sometimes reddish and up to 15 centimeters long. The thin leathery, up to 15 centimeters long and up to 20 centimeters wide, heart-shaped, ovate to round, finely pointed to tailed, entire leaf blade is palmate, lobed to split with five to seven lobes. The leaf lobes are pointed to tailed and usually have one or two, usually finely pointed to pointed teeth or lobes on both sides. The lobes between the leaf lobes are usually blunt to pointed. The upper side of the leaf is dark green, shiny and bare and the underside of the leaf is lighter with hairy veins. The autumn color is intense golden yellow to deep red. The palmate veins are usually seven-lobed. The Norway maple is monoecious, monoecious and dichogamous. The flowers appear before or with the leaves. As with the field maple, the flowers of the Norway maple are arranged in upright, terminal and umbellate inflorescences. The functionally unisexual and yellow-green flowers are five-lobed with a double perianth. The flower stalk is 1 to 2 centimeters long. The flowers are 10 to 12 millimeters large. The calyx and corolla are slightly different and yellow-green to pale yellow. The egg-shaped sepals and the short-nailed petals are 4 to 7 millimeters long. The number of stamens, which are slightly shorter than the petals, is eight. The flattened, bare ovary is superior and consists of two carpels. The style is bare and the stigma branches are yellowish to whitish. The male flowers have a pistillode and the female flowers have staminodes with antherodes. Each has a discus. The Norway maple forms schizocarps in the form of two-part wing nuts (samara). The single-seeded fruits each have a wing and are 4 to 5 centimeters long and up to 15 millimeters wide. The wings of the fruits are at an obtuse angle to horizontally from each other. The fruit ripens in October. (Wikipedia)
The Norway maple is one of the most common tree species in German towns and villages. It is particularly striking in spring, when a multitude of yellow-green blossoms bathe the streets, avenues and parks in a fresh, light green before the darker leaves sprout.
The tree used to be known as an "edible tree" and was used in many ways. In spring, similar to birch and pine, the bark was tapped to extract the sap. This tree sap was drunk fresh, thickened into syrup or fermented into wine. The leaves were used to make a salad, or they were fermented into sauerkraut and used fresh or dried as animal feed.
In the kitchen, the young, tender leaves are eaten raw or cooked and are a mild base for salads, soups and various vegetable dishes. The flowers are an edible decoration that enriches salads or other dishes. The fresh sprouts can be pickled in vinegar and oil or fried in butter with a little salt and pepper.
The wood of the tree is used to make tools, handles, plane boxes, tool benches, bows, rifle stocks, walking sticks and sleigh runners, among other things.