''Acer capillipes'' (Kyushu maple or red snakebark maple; ), is a maple in the same

taxon In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''taxonomy''; : taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular name and ...

omic section as other snakebark maples such as '' A. pensylvanicum'', '' A. davidii'' and '' A. rufinerve''. It is native to mountainous regions in

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

, on central and southern

Honshū , historically known as , is the largest of the four main islands of Japan. It lies between the Pacific Ocean (east) and the Sea of Japan (west). It is the seventh-largest island in the world, and the second-most populous after the Indonesian ...

(

Fukushima Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Tōhoku region of Honshu. Fukushima Prefecture has a population of 1,771,100 () and has a geographic area of . Fukushima Prefecture borders Miyagi Prefecture and Yamagata Prefecture ...

southwards),

Kyūshū is the third-largest island of Japan's four main islands and the most southerly of the four largest islands (i.e. excluding Okinawa and the other Ryukyu (''Nansei'') Islands). In the past, it has been known as , and . The historical regio ...

and

Shikoku is the smallest of the List of islands of Japan#Main islands, four main islands of Japan. It is long and between at its widest. It has a population of 3.8 million, the least populated of Japan's four main islands. It is south of Honshu ...

islands, usually growing alongside mountain streams.Kanagawa Prefecture trees and shrubs
''Acer capillipes''
(in Japanese

2009-10-24.Flowers of University of Tsukuba

(in Japanese

Characteristics

It is a small

deciduous In the fields of horticulture and botany, the term deciduous () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed Leaf, leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, aft ...

tree In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, e.g., including only woody plants with secondary growth, only ...

growing to 10–15 m (rarely to 20 m) tall with a trunk up to 70 cm diameter, though usually smaller and often with multiple trunks, and a spreading crown of long, slender branches. The

bark Bark may refer to: Common meanings * Bark (botany), an outer layer of a woody plant such as a tree or stick * Bark (sound), a vocalization of some animals (which is commonly the dog) Arts and entertainment * ''Bark'' (Jefferson Airplane album), ...

is smooth, olive-green with regular narrow vertical white stripes and small horizontal brownish

lenticel A lenticel is a porous tissue consisting of cells with large intercellular spaces in the periderm of the secondarily thickened organs and the Bark (botany), bark of woody stems and roots of gymnosperms and dicotyledonous flowering plants. It func ...

s; it retains its pattern to the base even on old trees. The

leaves A leaf (: leaves) is a principal appendage of the stem of a vascular plant, usually borne laterally above ground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", while the leaves, stem, ...

are 10–15 cm long and 6–12 cm broad, with three or five lobes, the basal lobes of five-lobed leaves being small; they have a serrated margin, conspicuous veining, and a reddish 4–8 cm petiole. They are matt to sub-shiny green in summer, turning to bright yellow, orange or red in the autumn. The

flower Flowers, also known as blooms and blossoms, are the reproductive structures of flowering plants ( angiosperms). Typically, they are structured in four circular levels, called whorls, around the end of a stalk. These whorls include: calyx, m ...

s are small, greenish-yellow, produced on 8–10 cm

raceme A raceme () or racemoid is an unbranched, indeterminate growth, indeterminate type of inflorescence bearing flowers having short floral stalks along the shoots that bear the flowers. The oldest flowers grow close to the base and new flowers are ...

s in late spring, erect at first but becoming pendulous, with male and female flowers on different racemes. The

samara Samara, formerly known as Kuybyshev (1935–1991), is the largest city and administrative centre of Samara Oblast in Russia. The city is located at the confluence of the Volga and the Samara (Volga), Samara rivers, with a population of over 1.14 ...

nutlets are 5 mm long, with a 2 cm long wing.van Gelderen, C. J. & van Gelderen, D. M. (1999). Maples for Gardens: A Color EncyclopediaRushforth, K. (1999). ''Trees of Britain and Europe''. Collins . It can be distinguished from the related '' Acer rufinerve'' (Japanese, ウリハダカエデ ''urihadakaede''), with which it sometimes grows, by the reddish petioles, the hairless or only thinly hairy leaves (contrasting with the rufous hairs on the underside of ''A. rufinerve'' leaves), and in flowering later in spring well after the leaves appear.

Cultivation and uses

It is grown as an

ornamental tree Ornamental plants or ''garden plants'' are plants that are primarily grown for their beauty but also for qualities such as scent or how they shape physical space. Many flowering plants and garden varieties tend to be specially bred cultivars th ...

for its striped bark and good autumn foliage. When grown together with its close relatives, it may be distinguished from them by the additional presence of small, rust-orange spots on the bark. Hybrids with ''A. davidii'' are frequent in cultivation. This plant has gained the

Royal Horticultural Society The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), founded in 1804 as the Horticultural Society of London, is the UK's leading gardening charity. The RHS promotes horticulture through its five gardens at Wisley (Surrey), Hyde Hall (Essex), Harlow Carr ...

Award of Garden Merit The Award of Garden Merit (AGM) is a long-established award for plants by the British Royal Horticultural Society (RHS). It is based on assessment of the plants' performance under UK growing conditions. It includes the full range of cultivated p ...

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1089472 capillipes Endemic flora of Japan Trees of Japan Taxa named by Karl Maximovich