Maple | Acer Trees

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Advice For Choosing Maple Trees The vibrant colours and distinctive lobed shape of their leaves make Maple trees a great addition to any garden or planting scheme. They can be trees or shrubs and come in a variety of shapes including upright, spreading, mound forming and round. The smaller varieties of Japanese Maple are ideal for any sized garden, with many being suitable for growing in a pot. For those with larger gardens, Norway and Red Maples create a stunning feature. Maple trees are all deciduous but if you want winter interest, choose Coral Bark or Snake Bark Maples for their colourful or patterned bark. Whilst primarily known for their leaves, Maple trees can also produce flowers and fruits called 'samaras'. The fruits spin as they fall due to their shape and are commonly known as 'maple keys', 'whirlybirds' and 'polynoses'. Children often refer to them as helicopters and the US army even designed an air drop supply carrier based on this 'helicopter' technique. Acer Species Acer davidii , commonly known as the Snakebark tree boasts unusual, striated bark which ranges in colour from red to brown to white. Native to China, Acer davidii was discovered by the Basque priest Armand David, a missionary stationed in central China. Acer pseudoplatanus the Sycamore tree is native to central Europe and south-western Asia. It is named after its superficial similarity to the Platanus genus using the Ancient Greek prefix pseudo which means false. Other common names for this tree include: False Plane Tree, Great Maple and Scottish Maple. There is an ongoing dispute regarding the origin of this tree. Some state it can be traced back to the Bronze Age whilst others argue it was first introduced in 1487. Acer Rubrum , the Red Maple, is actually named as such due to all parts of the tree (seeds, twigs and flowers) being red however most people associate its common name with the red foliage. Native to North America, the Red Maple is the state tree of Rhode Island and can be use