About

Acer diabolicum, the horned maple or devil maple, is a species of maple that is endemic to central and southern Japan. There it is known as カジカエデ, kaji kaede or オニモミジ, oni‑momiji, and is planted as an ornamental. It is occasionally planted as an ornamental outside Japan. It gets its specific epithet and its common names from the hornlike appearance of the two protruding curly stigmas of its flowers, which are retained on its winged seeds.

How to grow it

Seeds from the purplish-red flowered purpurascens variety or form of Acer diabolicum were sent to botanical gardens in Britain and the United States in the late 1800s and early 1900s. As a consequence, the more common pinkish-red flowered form is still difficult to obtain from commercial nurseries. In springtime, the emerging foliage and male flowers are reddish and rather striking, especially on the purpurascens form. In the US it makes a sturdy tree, and it does best in USDA Plant Hardiness Zones 6a to 8b. In Zone 5 it will probably need to be planted on a south slope or otherwise protected place. Its broad growth form largely precludes it from being planted on street parkways, but the fact that it, unlike most maples, has male and female individuals it makes it useful to plant males in landscape and garden applications where seedlings are not desired. The flowers attract pollinators.

In Japan it is planted as an ornamental, and its timber was used like other maples.

Where it grows

Acer diabolicum is found growing on wooded mountain slopes exclusively on Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu islands of Japan. It is generally rare, preferring the warmer conditions of the Pacific side.

Other Acer plants

Field Maple · Kyushu Maple · Cappadocian maple · Vine maple · Père David's maple · Acer tataricum subsp. ginnala · Paperbark maple · Fullmoon Maple · Lobel's Maple · Bigleaf Maple · Montpellier Maple · Manitoba Maple