Père David's Maple

This species is ornamental for its snakelike bark and the autumn coloration of its leaves.

Trees ca. 10 m tall, andromonoecious, but often with an androdioecious sex expression. Bark gray-brown. Branchlets brownish green or greenish purple, glabrous; winter buds oblong, small, glabrous, scales 2 pairs. Leaves deciduous; petioles 3-6 cm, rufous pubescent when young; leaf blade abaxially pale green, adaxially dark green, ovate, ovate-oblong, or suborbicular-ovate, (6-)8-12(-14) × (4-)5-8(-9) cm, papery, abaxially rufous pubescent on veins when young, glabrescent when mature, adaxially glabrous, veins 10-13 pairs, base subcordate or rounded, margin undivided or (3 or)5-lobed, serrulate or doubly serrate, apex acuminate or rarely caudate-acuminate; lobes apically obtuse or middle lobe triangular and lateral and basal lobes apically acute. Flowers greenish yellow. Inflorescence pendulous, racemose. Pedicel 1-1.5 cm, slender. Sepals 5, elliptic, ca. 4 mm, apex obtuse. Petals 5, obovate, ca. 4 mm. Stamens 8, ca. 3 mm, glabrous; anthers yellow. Disk glabrous, lobes intrastaminal. Ovary rudimentary. Fruit brownish yellow; nutlets flat, 8-10 × ca. 6 mm; wing including nutlet 2.5-2.8 cm, wings spreading horizontally or obtusely. Fl. Mar-Apr, fr. Sep. 2n = 26.

Mixed forests. Anhui, Fujian, SE Gansu, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hebei, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Ningxia, S Shaanxi, Shanxi, Sichuan, Yunnan, Zhejiang [Myanmar].