Acer pycnanthum

Japanese red maple or Korean maple is in the soapberry or Sapindaceae family and is native central Honshu Island in Japan, Korea and the Russian Far East. It is a small tree, reaching up to 15 m in height.

• Branchlets are reddish-brown to gray-brown, glabrous.
• Leaves are deciduous, simple, opposite, papery, 6–8 cm long and 2.5–7 across, palmately 3-lobed (lobes shallow), upper surface is shiny green and glabrous, lower surface glaucous and glabrous, margins irregularly serrate, apex acute; petiole is 3–9 cm long, reddish; autumn colour is yellow to orange-red.
• Species is dioecious; flowers are terminal and lateral, umbellate with 4–10 flowers; sepals are oblong, red, petals none to 5, smaller than sepals.
• Winged samaras are double, 2–3 cm long, spreading acutely, maturing in late summer.
• Bark is gray, longitudinally fissured, becoming shaggy.