Acer sempervirens

Cretan maple is in the soapberry or Sapindaceae family and is native to southern Greece and southern Turkey. It is a shrub or small tree growing to 10 m tall.

• Bark is dark grey, smooth in young trees, becoming scaly and shallowly fissured in mature trees. The shoots are green at first, becoming dull brown in the second year.
• Leaves are evergreen, opposite, simple, hard, leathery, 1–4 cm long and 1–3 cm across, variably unlobed or 3-lobed, edges usually toothless.
• Flowers are yellow-green, produced in small pendulous corymbs about 2 cm long.
• Fruit is a pair of samaras each 1.5 cm long, spreading parallel to sometimes an angle of 60° ; samara mature in late summer.