Acer carpinifolium

Hornbeam Maple
Hornbeam Maple tree
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
Division:	Magnoliophyta
Class:	Magnoliopsida
Order:	Sapindales
Family:	Sapindaceae
Genus:	Acer
Species:	A. carpinifolium
Binomial name
Acer carpinifolium Siebold & Zucc.

Hornbeam Maple (Acer carpinifolium; Japanese: Chidorinoki) is a species of maple, native to Japan on the islands of Honshū, Kyūshū, and Shikoku, where it grows in woodlands and alongside streams in mountainous areas.

Foliage

It is a small deciduous tree growing to 10 m tall, with smooth, dark greenish-grey bark. The leaves are 7-15 cm long and 3-6 cm broad, simple, unlobed, and pinnately-veined with 18-24 pairs of veins and a serrated margin. They resemble leaves of hornbeams more than they do other maples, except for being arranged in opposite pairs, and in the very small basal pair of veins being palmately arranged as in other maples. The flowers are small and greenish, produced in pendulous racemes 5-12 cm long in spring as the new leaves open. The fruit is a samara of two seeds each with a 2-3 cm long wing.

It is occasionally cultivated as an ornamental plant in temperate regions, mainly as a botanical curiosity to demonstrate the wide range of leaf morphology in the genus Acer, but also for its bright yellow autumn colour.

Leaf

References

• Plants of Japan: Acer carpinifolium
• Rushforth, K. (1999). Trees of Britain and Europe. HarperCollins ISBN 0-00-220013-9.