The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Acer palmatum
Also called Smooth Japanese Maple, Purple Japanese Maple, Palmate Maple
Acer palmatum is a deciduous shrub or small tree prized for its palmate leaves and brilliant autumn colour, with thousands of cultivars grown worldwide. Give it shelter from hot afternoon sun and wind, and well-drained, moisture-retentive soil.
Acer palmatum, commonly known as Japanese maple, palmate maple, or smooth Japanese maple (Korean: danpungnamu [단풍나무]; Japanese: irohamomiji [イロハモミジ] or momiji [紅葉]), is a species of woody plant native to Korea, Japan, China, eastern Mongolia, and far eastern Russia. Many different cultivars of this maple have been selected and they are grown worldwide for their large variety of attractive forms, leaf shapes, and spectacular colors.
Acer palmatum has been cultivated in Japan for centuries and in temperate areas around the world since the 1800s. The first specimen of the tree reached Britain in 1821.
When Swedish doctor-botanist Carl Peter Thunberg traveled in Japan late in the eighteenth century, he produced drawings of a small tree that would eventually become synonymous with the high art of oriental gardens. He gave it the species name palmatum after the hand-like shape of its leaves, similar to the centuries-old Japanese names kaede and momiji, references to the 'hands' of frogs and babies, respectively.
Field Maple · Kyushu Maple · Cappadocian maple · Vine maple · Père David's maple · Horned maple · Acer tataricum subsp. ginnala · Paperbark maple · Fullmoon Maple · Lobel's Maple · Bigleaf Maple · Montpellier Maple
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Acer palmatum by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
