Canada’s New Currency Features ‘Wrong’ Maple Leaf
Canada apparently used the “wrong” maple leaf when it printed out its newest currency, according to a botanist.
The botanist, Sean Blaney, claims that Canada actually used the Norway maple leaf in its new plastic currency instead of the North American sugar maple.
Blaney spends his time tracking plants for the Atlantic Canada Conservation Data Centre in New Brunswick, reports ABC Online. He first brought the maple leaf mix up to the attention of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
The botanist added that the untrained eye may not be able to spot the difference between the two plant leaves, but there is a difference.
He added that the Norway maple has more lobes or sections and also has a more pointed outline than the sugar maple. The lobe in the center is also shorter than the sugar maple’s.
Bank of Canada currency spokesman Julie Girard contended the assessment. The central bank’s intention was actually to design a leaf that doesn’t represent any specific maple leaf but rather a combination of them. Yahoo! News notes that Girard stated:
“It is not a Norway maple leaf. It is a stylized maple leaf and it is what it ought to be.”
Girard added that the designers of the new image created it with the help of a dendrologist (a botanist who specializes in trees and shrubs). She added:
“On the advice of this expert, steps were taken to ensure that the design of the leaf in the secondary window is not representative of a Norway maple.”
But Blaney doesn’t believe it. He stated, “I think it’s just an after-the-fact excuse.” While the Norway maple has naturalized to North America, it is not native. Blaney added:
“That may have been their intention, to not have it be a specific species of maple, but they should have drawn it differently if that were the case, because the maple that they’ve drawn is quite clearly a Norway maple.”
Do you think it matters if the maple leaf on Canada’s new currency is a Norway maple, a North American sugar maple, or a stylized leaf?
