''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 In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

of tree in the

snakebark maple Snakebark maples are maples belonging to the taxonomic section ''Acer'' sect. ''Macrantha''. The section includes 18–21 species, and is restricted to eastern Asia (the eastern Himalaya east to Japan) with the exception of one species in easte ...

group, related to ''

Acer capillipes ''Acer capillipes'' (Kyushu maple or red snakebark maple; ja, ホソエカエデ, translit=hosoekaede), is a maple in the same taxonomic section as other snakebark maples such as '' A. pensylvanicum'', '' A. davidii'' and '' A. rufinerve''. It i ...

'' (Kyushu maple). It is native to mountain forests of

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

, on

Honshū , historically called , is the largest and most populous island of Japan. It is located south of Hokkaidō across the Tsugaru Strait, north of Shikoku across the Inland Sea, and northeast of Kyūshū across the Kanmon Straits. The island separa ...

Kyūshū is the third-largest island of Japan's five main islands and the most southerly of the four largest islands ( i.e. excluding Okinawa). In the past, it has been known as , and . The historical regional name referred to Kyushu and its surround ...

and

Shikoku is the smallest of the four main islands of Japan. It is long and between wide. It has a population of 3.8 million (, 3.1%). It is south of Honshu and northeast of Kyushu. Shikoku's ancient names include ''Iyo-no-futana-shima'' (), '' ...

.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 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, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are ...

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

bark Bark may refer to: * 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) Places * Bark, Germany * Bark, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, Poland Arts, ...

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 of woody stems and roots of dicotyledonous flowering plants. It functions as a pore, providing a ...

s; on old trees, it becomes rough and grey. The

leaves A leaf (plural, : leaves) is any of the principal appendages of a vascular plant plant stem, stem, usually borne laterally aboveground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", wh ...

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 A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants (plants of the division Angiospermae). The biological function of a flower is to facilitate reproduction, usually by providing a mechani ...

s are produced in

raceme A raceme ( or ) or racemoid is an unbranched, 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 produced as the s ...

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 a species, meaning that it has distinct individual organisms (unisexual) that produce male or female gametes, either directly (in animals) or indirectly (in seed plants). Dioecious reproductio ...

, with male and female flowers on separate trees. The

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

is a paired

samara Samara ( rus, Сама́ра, p=sɐˈmarə), known from 1935 to 1991 as Kuybyshev (; ), is the largest city and administrative centre of Samara Oblast. The city is located at the confluence of the Volga and the Samara (Volga), Samara rivers, with ...

2–3 cm long with rounded nutlets. It can be distinguished from the related ''

'' 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 type of cultivated plant that people have selected for desired traits and when propagated retain those traits. Methods used to propagate cultivars include: division, root and stem cuttings, offsets, grafting, tissue culture, ...

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

Variegated Variegation is the appearance of differently coloured zones in the leaves and sometimes the stems and fruit of plants. Species with variegated individuals are sometimes found in the understory of tropical rainforests, and this habitat is the s ...

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