The new plasticized Canadian $20 bill has already caught a lot of flak for feeling so fake, but now there’s a new reason to criticize the denomination’s design.
Reuters is reporting that according to a hawk-eyed Canadian botanist, the Bank of Canada has issued the wrong maple leaf on its newest bill.
Apparently, according to Sean Blaney, the maple leaf on the left-hand side of the new banknotes actually belongs to a Norway maple, rather than the grand sugar maple, which are the leaves that are part of Canada’s iconography.
While the Norway maple has crossed the Atlantic and can be found across North America, the species is not native to our shores.
Basically, the Bank of Canada has barked up the wrong species of tree on all its newest banknotes — at least according to Blaney, who works for the Atlantic Canada Conservation Data Centre in New Brunswick. He noticed the same discrepancy on the new $50 and $100 bills as well.
The central bank responded, saying its aim was to make the leaf look like any number of species of maple leaves. The image was created with the help of another botanist, who says the leaf is simply stylized and is not actually a representation of a Norway maple.
