# This maple leaf looks suspiciously like a pot leaf **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 8, 2004, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-maple-leaf-looks-suspiciously-like-a-pot-leaf/223425 "2004-01-08T15:02:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Standup\_Karmic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ac91a4/32.png) [@Standup\_Karmic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Standup_Karmic)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2004, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-maple-leaf-looks-suspiciously-like-a-pot-leaf/223425/1 "2004-01-08T15:02:14Z")
While on Yahoo I came across a banner ad promoting Yahoo Canada Shopping. [This banner ad](http://members.shaw.ca/thewordsmith/canpot.gif) shows a Canadian flag…only that looks an awful lot like a pot leaf on the flag to me, not a maple leaf (as is typically the preferred foliage for the Canuck flag). I’m right, aren’t I? If it is a pot leaf, what do you suppose they’re trying to get at by having it there? ---
**Author:** ![Phlosphr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c68b51/32.png) [@Phlosphr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phlosphr)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2004, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-maple-leaf-looks-suspiciously-like-a-pot-leaf/223425/2 "2004-01-08T15:05:26Z")
[This](http://paranoia.lycaeum.org/marijuana/images/pot-leaf-big.jpg) is a pot leaf…your link does not look too much like it in my opinion. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2004, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-maple-leaf-looks-suspiciously-like-a-pot-leaf/223425/3 "2004-01-08T15:12:44Z")
Actually, it doesn’t look like a maple leaf _or_ a pot leaf… more like a poinsettia or something. We must find out what the Mystery Leaf is. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2004, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-maple-leaf-looks-suspiciously-like-a-pot-leaf/223425/4 "2004-01-08T15:17:58Z")
I think that is a kind of maple. Just not the sugar maple usually seen on Can flags. I’ll check. I’ve seen it quite commonly around Chicago. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2004, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-maple-leaf-looks-suspiciously-like-a-pot-leaf/223425/5 "2004-01-08T15:24:35Z")
Correction - sweetgum. Of course, I wouldn’t have any idea what a marijuana leaf looked like… ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2004, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-maple-leaf-looks-suspiciously-like-a-pot-leaf/223425/6 "2004-01-08T15:36:34Z")
Yes, it looks like sweetgum to me. Somebody at Yahoo goofed bigtime. ---
**Author:** ![stuyguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@stuyguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stuyguy)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2004, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-maple-leaf-looks-suspiciously-like-a-pot-leaf/223425/7 "2004-01-08T16:01:26Z")
A little story. My elderly mother and father went on a bus tour of Canada a number of years ago. My mom brought my bro, sis and me (all adults) back some little souvenirs of the trip. She gave my sister one of those tea-saucer-sized stained glass thingees you hang in your window. The design, mom proudly proclaimed, was of a Canadian Maple leaf. I burst out laughfing – it was a pot leaf, of course! My more-diplomatic sister rushed to defend mom’s dignity. No, it was a Maple leaf, she said – all the while shooting me a dirty look and supressing a knowing smirk. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2004, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-maple-leaf-looks-suspiciously-like-a-pot-leaf/223425/8 "2004-01-08T17:17:09Z")
There are numerous species of maple (genus **Acer** ). In fact the Manitoba maple, ash-leaf maple, or “box elder” (Acer negundo) has a compund leaf consisting of three (occasionally five) leaflets resembling those of the true ash tree, joined by short petioles. Several species of maple, including one of the trees locally known as "sugar maple and the silver maple, have thin, attenuated, “fractally” multi-palmate leaves quite reminiscent of the _Cannabis_ leaf (as, of course, does the cinquefoil plant). ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2004, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-maple-leaf-looks-suspiciously-like-a-pot-leaf/223425/9 "2004-01-08T17:25:47Z")
It looks like a Canadian maple and a Japanese maple got together and made sweet maple love. “Mimoji, you’re not like all the other maples- So delicate looking and yet so hardy.” “Oh, Mac, you’re so big and hairy, and your heartwood is so fine and strong. Let’s cross-pollinate immediately!” ---
**Author:** ![Tikki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5daacb/32.png) [@Tikki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tikki)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2004, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-maple-leaf-looks-suspiciously-like-a-pot-leaf/223425/10 "2004-01-09T07:26:10Z")
That looks like a vine maple leaf to me. A Japanese laceleaf would have more pot-looking leaves, in my opinion. ---
**Author:** ![BellaDellaItalia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/fbc32d/32.png) [@BellaDellaItalia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BellaDellaItalia)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2004, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-maple-leaf-looks-suspiciously-like-a-pot-leaf/223425/11 "2004-01-09T20:16:56Z")
> [@](#): > > It looks like a Canadian maple and a Japanese maple got together and made sweet maple love. > > “Mimoji, you’re not like all the other maples- So delicate looking and yet so hardy.” > > “Oh, Mac, you’re so big and hairy, and your heartwood is so fine and strong. Let’s cross-pollinate immediately!” That definitely qualifies as the most screwed up thing I’ve heard all day.