Yellow maple

Family: Maple family. Occurs in Primorye, on Sakhalin, in Northeast China, Japan.

Yellow maple grows in coniferous and mixed forests on fertile moist soils. Shade-tolerant.

A shade-tolerant tall shrub or small tree up to 15 m high, with an ovate crown, soft yellowish-gray peeling bark, attractive ornamental foliage, striking during mass flowering. It extends farther north than all other maple species. Young shoots are pubescent, later glabrous, reddish-brown, with few lenticels. Leaves five-lobed, rounded-ovate, up to 10 cm long, yellowish-green and glabrous above, densely pubescent beneath with soft reddish hairs, especially along the veins. Flowers small, yellow, in dense, erect racemes. Blooms after leafing out. Samaras pink when young, later brown.

Undemanding to soil, moisture-loving and winter-hardy, seedlings require shelter. Mass of 1000 seeds 7.9 g. Seed viability 100%. Seeds sown without stratification in October produce seedlings in May. 35% of summer cuttings root when treated with a 0.01% IMK solution for 16 h. Shows well in solitary and group plantings in parks and forest parks. In cultivation since the second half of the 19th century.