A Norway maple coming to leaf, Elmwood Park. Credit: Sean Kirst | Central Current

Happy ‘Leaf Day.’

Well, that’s what I call it, at least.

Across the urban forest of Syracuse, this moment is always special in a quiet and even spiritual way. It is the breakout point — an explosion of mysterious beauty — when all the Norway maples in Syracuse seem to burst into leaf at once in a stunning wave of a short-lived, one-of-a-kind fluorescent green. It may be slightly different in timing in your neighborhood than it is for me, though I noticed it happening Tuesday in the trees that line Furnace Brook in Elmwood Park.

It is aching and extraordinary.

And – if you don’t stop and look – this astounding shade of green never hangs around for long, before those leaves transition quickly into a deeper, more typical green that lasts into October.

To me, these days are as memorable and worthy of celebrating in their own springtime way as that feeling down the road, when the leaves shift into the burning colors of autumn.

As noted by Logan Reidsma, foreman of the tree-planting Onondaga Earth Corps, the moment is particularly moving amid the profound seasonal swings of Syracuse, snowiest large city in the nation this winter with 143.1 total inches of snow, according to the National Weather Service — meaning we just spent many months of waking up each day to face a blanket of snow cover, and to look upon thousands of city trees with grim, bare limbs.

What a delight on Tuesday, then, to take the puppy for a walk in Elmwood and to see those maple leaves in the absolute first brilliant stage of coming out — an eruption sped up a little this year by warmer April temperatures.

The average high has been 62.6 degrees, based on numbers provided by National Weather Service meteorologist Kaitlyn Lardeo, who said that is about 6.2 degrees above the daily April average high, for Syracuse.

A Norway bursts into leaf, Elmwood Park. Credit: Sean Kirst | Central Current

Don Leopold of the SUNY College of Environmental and Forestry is a distinguished teaching professor, plant biologist and — bottom line — the great tree scholar of Syracuse. He makes this note about the Norway maples, going to leaf:

“There’s no green like it,” he said, describing that immediate brilliant mesh of a green that is almost yellow, even golden. He expects all the maples — including sugar maples, red maples and silver maples — will be in lush full leaf by the end of April.

Yet he offered the point grudgingly about the right-now beauty of the Norways, because — to put it mildly — he is not a fan. They are “highly invasive,” Leopold said, noting the one good thing about the fierce derecho that hammered Syracuse on Labor Day 1998 was that it wiped out a whole lot of Norways, which he estimates at that time accounted for maybe a quarter of all the trees along our city streets.

Norway maples come to leaf on ‘Leaf Day’ in Syracuse. Credit: Sean Kirst | Central Current

The storm, he said, allowed the city to extensively replant, using more regionally appropriate trees that he sees as far more suitable and beautiful for this community.

Still, he agrees the Norways contribute powerfully to this exquisite moment in time. If you drive along a rural highway in Central New York, Leopold said you might observe dozens of distinct and memorable greens in the canopy of any forest, a beautiful payback for the long, harsh winter.

That brilliant spring theater has to be appreciated as it happens, before it all turns into one great woodland blanket of more similar greens.

“Nothing (else) has its color,” Leopold said of the Norway maple at this moment, though he said the voracious nature of the tree takes away much of his joy when he sees it surging into leaf.

“Sometimes,” Leopold said, “I regret knowing what I know,” meaning the way knowledge can sometimes undermine perceptions of beauty, a reality going back to Eden. Reidsma, foreman of the Earth Corps, said he also notices the “lovely spring pop of color” from the Norways, though – like Leopold – he realizes that energy comes with challenges.

Reidsma estimates the Earth Corps plants more than 1,000 young trees a year along streets, in parks or in forest restorations, with the staff keenly aware of the life cycles of trees. He sees this burst of green as an example of what he describes as a powerful gift of living in Syracuse: A particularly intense appreciation of seasonal balance.

Logan Reidsma, at work. Credit: Michelle Gabel | Central Current

Of the seasons, Reidsma said: “Not many places have them as distinctly as we do.” It is impossible, he said, not to feel “a little energized” with the spring … “those 55 + degree sunny days in Syracuse, after months of sub-freezing temperatures, hit differently.”

Yes, right now, he notices the Norways. And the redbuds, with their “purplish flowers.” And the serviceberry trees, which blossom in white. If you stop to take it in, Reidsma said all of it combines into a feeling almost of “night and day” in Syracuse – an electric breakout moment after months of browns and grays – and he tries to savor it while it is here, because it is so fleeting.

To which I would agree and simply say:

Happy Leaf Day.

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Sean Kirst is a columnist with The Central Current. He has been an Upstate journalist for more than 50 years. He held his first reporting job as a teenager and worked for newspapers in Dunkirk, Niagara...