Acer maximowiczianum is a species of maple

Maple

Acer is a genus of trees or shrubs commonly known as maple.Maples are variously classified in a family of their own, the Aceraceae, or together with the Hippocastanaceae included in the family Sapindaceae. Modern classifications, including the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group system, favour inclusion in...

 widely distributed in China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

 (Anhui

Anhui

Anhui is a province in the People's Republic of China. Located in eastern China across the basins of the Yangtze River and the Huai River, it borders Jiangsu to the east, Zhejiang to the southeast, Jiangxi to the south, Hubei to the southwest, Henan to the northwest, and Shandong for a tiny...

, Hubei

Hubei

' Hupeh) is a province in Central China. The name of the province means "north of the lake", referring to its position north of Lake Dongting...

, Hunan

Hunan

' is a province of South-Central China, located to the south of the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and south of Lake Dongting...

, Jiangxi

Jiangxi

' is a southern province in the People's Republic of China. Spanning from the banks of the Yangtze River in the north into hillier areas in the south, it shares a border with Anhui to the north, Zhejiang to the northeast, Fujian to the east, Guangdong to the south, Hunan to the west, and Hubei to...

, Sichuan

Sichuan

' , known formerly in the West by its postal map spellings of Szechwan or Szechuan is a province in Southwest China with its capital in Chengdu...

, Zhejiang

Zhejiang

Zhejiang is an eastern coastal province of the People's Republic of China. The word Zhejiang was the old name of the Qiantang River, which passes through Hangzhou, the provincial capital...

) and Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 (Honshū

Honshu

is the largest island of Japan. The nation's main island, it is south of Hokkaido across the Tsugaru Strait, north of Shikoku across the Inland Sea, and northeast of Kyushu across the Kanmon Strait...

, Kyūshū

Kyushu

is the third largest island of Japan and most southwesterly of its four main islands. Its alternate ancient names include , , and . The historical regional name is referred to Kyushu and its surrounding islands....

, Shikoku

Shikoku

is the smallest and least populous of the four main islands of Japan, located south of Honshū and east of the island of Kyūshū. Its ancient names include Iyo-no-futana-shima , Iyo-shima , and Futana-shima...

).

It is a slender deciduous

Deciduous

Deciduous means "falling off at maturity" or "tending to fall off", and is typically used in reference to trees or shrubs that lose their leaves seasonally, and to the shedding of other plant structures such as petals after flowering or fruit when ripe...

 tree

Tree

A tree is a perennial woody plant. It is most often defined as a woody plant that has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground on a single main stem or trunk with clear apical dominance. A minimum height specification at maturity is cited by some authors, varying from 3 m to...

 that reaches a height of 15-20m (30-45 ft) but is usually smaller. It is a trifoliate maple, related to such other species as Threeflower Maple

Acer triflorum

Acer triflorum is a species of maple native to hills of northern China and Korea....

 (Acer triflorum) and Paperbark Maple

Paperbark Maple

Acer griseum is a species of maple native to central China, in the provinces of Gansu, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Shaanxi, Shanxi, and Sichuan, at altitudes of 1,500–2,000 m....

 (Acer griseum) but has dark gray to blackish bark

Bark

Bark is the outermost layers of stems and roots of woody plants. Plants with bark include trees, woody vines and shrubs. Bark refers to all the tissues outside of the vascular cambium and is a nontechnical term. It overlays the wood and consists of the inner bark and the outer bark. The inner...

 dissimilar to the exfoliating bark

Exfoliation (botany)

Exfoliation means the removal or loss of leaves from a plant. It is used both to describe the loss of a leaves as a natural part of a plant’s life cycle or because of some trauma or outside cause Exfoliation (from the term "foliate", meaning “related to leaves”) means the removal or loss of...

 of either..

The leaves

Leaf

A leaf is an organ of a vascular plant, as defined in botanical terms, and in particular in plant morphology. Foliage is a mass noun that refers to leaves as a feature of plants....

 have a 3 centimetres (1.2 in)–5 centimetres (2 in) petiole

Petiole (botany)

In botany, the petiole is the stalk attaching the leaf blade to the stem. The petiole usually has the same internal structure as the stem. Outgrowths appearing on each side of the petiole are called stipules. Leaves lacking a petiole are called sessile, or clasping when they partly surround the...

 and three leaflets; the leaflets are oblong, 5 centimetres (2 in)–15 centimetres (5.9 in) long and 3 centimetres (1.2 in)–6 centimetres (2.4 in) broad, with dense, soft pubescence and smooth margins. The hard, horizontally-spreading samaras

Samara (fruit)

A samara is a type of fruit in which a flattened wing of fibrous, papery tissue develops from the ovary wall. A samara is a simple dry fruit and indehiscent . It is a winged achene...

 are 3.5 centimetres (1.4 in)–6 centimetres (2.4 in) long and 1.2 centimetre (0.47244094488189 in) broad, and have the same parthenocarpic

Parthenocarpy

In botany and horticulture, parthenocarpy is the natural or artificially induced production of fruit without fertilization of ovules. The fruit is therefore seedless. Stenospermocarpy may also produce apparently seedless fruit, but the seeds are actually aborted while still small...

 tendencies as those of A. griseum.

The Chinese populations are sometimes treated as a separate subspecies

Subspecies

Subspecies in biological classification, is either a taxonomic rank subordinate to species, ora taxonomic unit in that rank . A subspecies cannot be recognized in isolation: a species will either be recognized as having no subspecies at all or two or more, never just one...

 A. maximowiczianum subsp. megalocarpum (Rehder) A.E.Murray, but this is not recognised as distinct by the Flora of China.

Many older texts refer to the species under its synonym A. nikoense Maxim., but as Maximowicz

Carl Maximowicz

Carl Johann Maximowicz was a Russian botanist. Maximowicz spent most of his life studying the flora of the countries he had visited in the Far East, and naming many new species...

 had also cited the name Negundo nikoense Miq. in synonymy, his new name had to be regarded as the same as that under the ICBN. Miquel

Friedrich Anton Wilhelm Miquel

Friedrich Anton Wilhelm Miquel was a Dutch botanist.He was head of the botanical gardens at Rotterdam , Amsterdam and Utrecht . He directed the Rijksherbarium at Leiden from 1862...

 pointed out that his Negundo nikoense was actually a different plant to the maple Maximowicz had intended to describe, and therefore gave the Nikko Maple a new name, honouring Maximowicz in the process.

Cultivation

Nikko Maple was first introduced to cultivation in 1881, when seeds were imported by the Veitch Nurseries

Veitch Nurseries

The Veitch Nurseries were the largest group of family-run plant nurseries in Europe during the 19th century. Started by John Veitch sometime before 1808, the original nursery grew substantially over several decades and was eventually split into two separate businesses - based at Chelsea and...

 in England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, after they were discovered by Charles Maries

Charles Maries

Charles Maries was an English botanist and plant collector who was sent by James Veitch & Sons of Chelsea, London to search for new hardy plants in Japan, China and Taiwan between 1877 and 1879; there he discovered over 500 new species, which Veitch introduced to England...

 in the forests of Hokkaidō

Hokkaido

, formerly known as Ezo, Yezo, Yeso, or Yesso, is Japan's second largest island; it is also the largest and northernmost of Japan's 47 prefectural-level subdivisions. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaido from Honshu, although the two islands are connected by the underwater railway Seikan Tunnel...

. It is rarely seen in cultivation outside of arboreta

Arboretum

An arboretum in a narrow sense is a collection of trees only. Related collections include a fruticetum , and a viticetum, a collection of vines. More commonly, today, an arboretum is a botanical garden containing living collections of woody plants intended at least partly for scientific study...

. The largest specimens in England are up to 17 metres (55.8 ft) tall and 70 centimetres (27.6 in) trunk diameter. In the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, a mature specimen may be seen at Arnold Arboretum in Boston, Massachusetts.

External links

• Nikko Maple image