Hawthorn-leaved maple
| Hawthorn-leaved maple | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Hawthorn-leaved maple ( Acer crataegifolium ), illustration |
||||||||||||
| Systematics | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Acer crataegifolium | ||||||||||||
| Siebold & Zucc. |
The Weißdornblättrige maple ( Acer crataegifolium ) is a tree art from the genus of maple ( Acer ). These are in today family of the soap tree plants ( Sapindaceae provided), but were formerly their own family maple plants ( Aceraceae ). The hawthorn-leaved maple is only native to Japan, where it is called “Me-urinoki” ( Japaneseメ ウ リ ノ キ) or “Uri-kaede” (Japanese ウ リ カ エ デ).
description
It is a large shrub or a narrow-crowned tree that is eight to ten meters high. The young shoots are mostly reddish, sometimes green and somewhat frosted and hairy in the shoot. Older branches are dark green to gray-green, sometimes with black or white vertical stripes.
The leaves are unlobed or indistinctly three-lobed at the base, oblong-ovate, four to eight centimeters long, pointed, the base is weakly heart-shaped. They are irregular, finely serrated, bluish green and glabrous on the top, pale green on the underside, somewhat frosted and hairy on the shoot. The petiole is two to three inches long and colored red. The autumn color is scarlet.
The hawthorn-leaved maple is dioecious . The flowers are yellowish white, ten to fifteen in upright three to five centimeters long racemes. They usually arise from a short shoot together with a pair of leaves. The male flowers contain a rudimentary gynoeceum , just like the remains of the stamens can still be seen in the female flowers . The flowering time is in May.
The fruits are red-colored split fruits with horizontally spread wings. Each individual fruit is two centimeters with wings.
distribution
The distribution area is in Japan in the southwestern part of Honshūs , on Hokkaidō and Kyushu . The hawthorn-leaved maple grows there at altitudes of 200 to 1100 meters in deciduous forests. He prefers light spots on the edge of the forest, on streams or in clearings.
Systematics
The hawthorn-leaved maple is classified within the genus of maples in the Macrantha section . The maples in this section are collectively referred to as "snake skin maples" because of their striking bark pattern. Related species include David's maple , red snake skin maple and Korean snake skin maple .
literature
- Helmut Pirc: Maples . Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart (Hohenheim) 1994, ISBN 3-8001-6554-6 , pp. 128 .
- Acer crataegifolium. In: Flora of Japan.
