''Acer rufinerve'', the grey-budded snake-bark-maple, redvein maple or Honshū maple (

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

: ウリハダカエデ ''urihadakaede'', "melon-skin maple"), is a

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

of tree in the snakebark maple group, related to '' Acer capillipes'' (Kyushu maple). It is native to mountain forests of

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

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 ...

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 ...

.Kobe city
''Acer rufinerve''
(in Japanese

Kanagawa Prefecture trees and shrubs

(in Japanese

2009-10-24.van Gelderen, C. J. & van Gelderen, D. M. (1999). Maples for Gardens: A Color Encyclopedia The Latin and English names ''rufinerve'' and "redvein" refer to the reddish down on the veins. The Japanese name ''urihadakaede'' (melon-skin) refers to the bark pattern.Rushforth, K. (1999). ''Trees of Britain and Europe''. Collins .

Description

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 a height of 8–15 m, with a trunk up to 40 cm diameter. 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), ...

on young trees is smooth, olive-green with regular narrow vertical pale green to greyish stripes and small greyish

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; on old trees, it becomes rough and grey. 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 three-lobed (occasionally five-lobed with two additional small basal lobes), double serrated, 8–16 cm long and 6–16 cm broad, matt to sub-shiny dark green above, paler below with small tufts of rusty hair on the veins when young, becoming glabrous when mature; the petiole is greenish (rarely pinkish), 3–5 cm long. The leaves turn to bright 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 produced in

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 10 cm long, each flower 8–10 mm diameter, with five yellow to greenish-yellow sepals and petals; it is

dioecious Dioecy ( ; ; adj. dioecious, ) is a characteristic of certain species that have distinct unisexual individuals, each producing either male or female gametes, either directly (in animals) or indirectly (in seed plants). Dioecious reproduction is ...

, with male and female flowers on separate trees. The

fruit In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants (angiosperms) that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which angiosperms disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particular have long propaga ...

is a paired

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 ...

2–3 cm long with rounded nutlets. It can be distinguished from the related '' Acer capillipes'' with which it often occurs, by the green petioles, the rufous hairs on the underside of the leaves (contrasting with the hairless or only thinly hairy ''A. capillipes'' leaves), and in flowering earlier in spring at the same time as the leaves appear.

Cultivation

This is one of the most commonly planted snakebark maples, and is a hardy, fast grower. It does not display much variation as a species but a notable

cultivar A cultivar is a kind of Horticulture, cultivated plant that people have selected for desired phenotypic trait, traits and which retains those traits when Plant propagation, propagated. Methods used to propagate cultivars include division, root a ...

is 'Erythrocladum' with yellow-green in both its leaves and the stripes of its bark.

Variegated '' Cryptocarya williwilliana'' showing leaf venation and variegated leaves Variegation is the appearance of differently coloured zones in the foliage, flowers, and sometimes the stems and fruit of plants, granting a speckled, striped, or patch ...

cultivars include 'Albolimbatum' and 'Hatsuyaki'. 'Winter Gold' has bright golden-yellow bark.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q285744 rufinerve Endemic flora of Japan Trees of Japan Plants described in 1845 Taxa named by Philipp Franz von Siebold Taxa named by Joseph Gerhard Zuccarini