Acer shirasawanum

Acer shirasawanum (Shirasawa's maple or fullmoon maple; Japanese: オオイタヤメイゲツ ooitayameigetsu) is a species of maple native to Japan, on central and southern Honshū (Fukushima Prefecture southwards), Shikoku, and Kyūshū.

Contents

• Acer shirasawanum aureum
• Acer shirasawanum aureum 3l at big plant nursery in west sussex uk
• Cultivation and uses
• Related links
• References

It is a deciduous large shrub or small tree growing to 8–15 m tall with a trunk up to 50 cm diameter. The bark is smooth on both young and old trees. The shoots are slender, and hairless. The leaves are rounded, 4.5–8 cm long and 6–12 cm broad, palmately veined and lobed, with 9–13 (rarely 7) serrate shallowly incised lobes; they are hairless, or thinly hairy at first with white hairs; the petiole is 3–7 cm long and hairless. In autumn, the leaves turn bright gold or orange to dark red. The flowers are 1 cm diameter, with five dark purplish-red sepals, five small whitish petals (soon lost), and red stamens; they are andromonoecious, with inflorescences containing flowers with either both sexes, or just male, and are produced 10–20 together in erect terminal corymbs in early spring soon after the leaves appear. The fruit is a paired samara with the nutlets 5–10 mm diameter with a 20–25 mm wing, erect above the leaves, bright red maturing brown.

It can be distinguished from its close relatives Acer japonicum and Acer sieboldianum by its hairless shoots; from A. sieboldianum also by its red, not yellow, flowers.

Some authorities, especially in horticulture, still use the older classification including the species in A. japonicum; many specimens in cultivation also remain mislabelled as A. japonicum.

Two varieties are accepted: