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The maple tree is a beautiful, majestic natural icon. 

Different types of maple are scattered across four continents, and people all over the world are taken with their beauty. 

Because they are spread across so many different cultures, maple trees take on many symbolic meanings. In each different culture, the meaning of a maple tree is slightly different. 

For that reason, a maple is rich with different meanings: depending on the traditions you’re drawing on, you can see the maple tree or maple leaf so many different ways! The cultural significance of maple trees is different in different countries. However, the maple tree is consistently a positive symbol! 

Maple Trees Overview

Maple trees are members of the Acer genus of trees and are about 60 million years old. They are found all over the Northern Hemisphere (East and West!). Because there are so many species of maple trees, they appear in every size, shape, leaf structure, and color. They’re found in North America, Europe, Asia,  and northernmost Africa (mostly in Algeria). 

(Honestly they are so diverse that it’s really hard to write an overview! They have more differences than similarities!)

Maples are known for their strength and beautiful leaves. They’re also famous for their sap, which can be harvested to produce maple syrup. This process, ingrained in North American culture, involves tapping the tree during late winter and early spring, collecting the sap, and boiling it down to produce the sweet syrup. However, not every type of maple can produce the maple sap that can become syrup. 

Like the trees themselves, every culture’s symbolism for the maple tree is slightly different. The symbolic meaning of these trees varies from culture to culture. Here’s an overview:

Symbolism of Maple Tree in North America 

In North America, maple trees are aligned with the nation of Canada and its government. Maple trees also have deep signficance to Indigenous and Native American tribes. The maple species that produce the sweetest sap, sugar maple, is of great symbolic significance as well. 

Canada

The maple leaf’s shape appears on the Canadian flag, where it represents loyalty and national identity. Within Canadian culture, it represents the fortitude and courage of the Canadian settlers, who braved harsh winters when they arrived.

Maple leaves became a powerful symbol of Canadian culture as its own culture, distinct from the French culture the original settlers were coming from. I was delighted to learn while I was reading this that it originally came to represent Canada as part of the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste, which celebrated and acknowledged Canadian culture. This is part of what I love about symbolism! It’s so powerful to represent the originality and individuality of Canadian culture by representing it using a symbol of strength that was developed in the maple-rich land they lived in! It is such a meaningful way of representing Canada’s natural world and the influence it had on a distinctly Canadian culture.

Native Americans

Indigenous cultures throughout North America viewed the maple tree as having both many uses and rich symbolism. Cultures used all parts of the tree and cooked with the syrup from the sugar maple tree. Most historians believe that Native Americans taught settlers to the US and Canada how to tap trees.  

Many Native legends have the maple tree as subject or object! I’m going to link out to these legends and direct you to Native websites — give them your clicks!

• Manabozho decides that the people have gotten too lazy on sweet maple syrup and decides to dilute it so you need gallons of sap
• Gluskabe, similarly, decides to dilute the maple syrup into runny sap to teach humans a lesson
• The Huron and Iroquois tribes told stories about a pair of brothers representing light and dark or good and bad (or, if you prefer, creation and destruction). The “good” brother’s name translates to ‘Maple Sapling’. 

In recent years, Native cultures have re-embraced the practice of making syrup as a symbolic connection to the values and practices of their ancestors. 

Symbolism of Maple Tree in Asia

In Japanese culture, the maple, or “momiji,” represents the transient beauty of life, particularly celebrated during the fall foliage season, known as “koyo.” The changing colors of maple leaves are a reminder of the impermanence of life. Because the maple tree is so visually different from season to season, its vibrant colors changing in the autumn months are a reminder that the “seasons” of our lives are short. It’s like a counterpart to the cherry blossoms in the spring! T

he colors of the maple during the autumn season are a reminder of the inevitability of change. The Japanese maple tree reminds us that life is short! Japanese maple tattoos are common. This blog post breaks down the different types of these tattoos and how the inclusion of different aspects slightly changes the meaning of a tattoo of a Japanese maple. 

China considers the maple tree a symbol of harmony and balance. They consider the five points of the maple leaf to represent the five elements: wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. It is symbolically linked with good fortune, longevity and prosperity–the maple tree can live to be 400 years old! So a maple tree might appear in art or literature to symbolize good luck, wealth, or long life.

In Korean tradition, the maple tree, is revered for its resilience in harsh environments, symbolizing endurance and fortitude. Maple leaves are often depicted in Korean art and poetry as a metaphor for the strength to overcome adversity and thrive despite challenges. As in Canada, a maple is taken to represent the challenging climates in which it can grow, and the people who live alongside it. 

Symbolism of Maple Tree in Europe

In Celtic culture, the maple was a symbol of knowledge or inspiration. It also carried spiritual significance because it was associated with Danu (sometimes written as ‘Dana’), the goddess of fertility.  In Ireland and elsewhere in the UK, planting a maple on your property has the deeper meaning of symbolically “rooting” your home, making it stable and secure. 

Maple tree’s symbolic representation as a way to ward off evil spirits appears here too! Europeans would add maple planks or decorations to their main door as a way to keep evil at bay, symbolically protecting the home. Maple wood is considered to be a stabilizing materially overall. 

Elsewhere in Europe, new lovers scattered maple leaves to protect their love. Maple became associated with love and romance, and it became a popular choice to scatter maple leaves at weddings, the way we might today scatter flower petals. 

Symbolism of Maple Tree for Magic

Maple trees are believed to repel evil spirits, and a piece of a maple tree (however small) can be a powerful part of a ritual to drive out evil or misfortune, or carried with you for safety. 

The Druid’s Garden has a ritual for creativity based in the use of maple syrup or maple sap. (No maple trees? The ritual notes permit purchased syrup, or sap from a walnut tree, birch tree, or sycamore tree.

There’s not much out there about Danu, the Celtic Mother Goddess, but this post proposes a simple ritual for communicating with her. I can see this as being particularly meaningful for women with questions about their fertility or pregnancy. I like how roll-your-own the proposed ritual is. 

Some people online propose smudging with maple leaves…I would not opt for that myself. I think that it’s better to stick with something that has a more established pathway for magic to flow through. (And also, quite unsentimentally, burnt herbs have a pleasantness in their smell; burnt leaves don’t.)

To me, the stabilizing nature of maple makes it a really attractive inclusion in a charm bag. Pollywogs (which we called Pinnochio leaves when I was a child!) or the seed leaves of a maple tree would be a great choice for this. I would expect a maple leaf to disintegrate pretty quickly, but a pollywog would hold up well. The pollywog would bring stability and confidence to the other elements you chose to include in your charm bag. 

(Looking for other charm bag options? Check out my post on herbs for manifestation, which will give you a lot of options!)