Acer rufinerve Seeds | Redvein Maple
LATIN NAME: Acer rufinerve
COMMON NAME: Redvein Maple
Plant Profile
Acer rufinerve is one of the snake-bark maples, and the trunk is the reason to grow it. The bark is smooth and green when young, marked with pale vertical stripes and with darker horizontal bands where the leaf scars sit, and it keeps that pattern for years. The leaves are three-lobed, broadly oval and coarsely toothed, and they turn yellow and orange rather than red in autumn.
The species grows in the mountains of Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu, usually between 500 and 1,500 metres, in mixed forest with beech and with other maples. It reaches about twelve metres, with an upright habit when young and a broader crown with age. The flowers appear with the leaves in small hanging racemes, and the samaras ripen in late summer.
Science & Biotechnology
The striped bark is a feature of a group of maples in section Macrantha, and it is thought to help the young stem photosynthesise while it is still shaded, before the cork layer thickens. The stripes are lenticels, pores for gas exchange, and the green between them is living tissue. As the tree ages the bark turns grey and the pattern is lost.
The species is hexaploid, with six sets of chromosomes, which is unusual in a genus where most species are diploid. That probably reflects a hybrid origin, and molecular work places it close to Acer pensylvanicum and Acer capillipes, both snake-bark maples with striped trunks. In the wild the three do not overlap, so the relationship is inferred from DNA rather than from crossing.
Uses & Benefits
The tree is grown for ornament, particularly for the winter bark and for the clean yellow autumn colour. It is used in Japan as a garden tree and in bonsai, where the striped trunk is the point. The wood is soft and light and is used for small turnery and for fuel, but the trees are too small for timber.
In Japanese practice the sap is boiled to a syrup in small quantities in early spring, and the young leaves are occasionally salted. Neither is a commercial use, and the species has no place in pharmacy. The seed trade is small and is supplied mostly by collectors in Japan.
Growing from Seed
Maple seed is short-lived, so sow it the autumn it ripens. Sow fresh in autumn in a peaty mix and leave the pot outdoors through winter, or stratify at 4 degrees for three months. Germination is in April, and the seedlings are moderately fast, reaching thirty centimetres in the first year.
Plant in light shade with shelter from wind and from afternoon sun, since the leaves scorch at the edges in dry heat. The species wants a cool, slightly acid soil with leaf mould, and it resents lime and drought. It is hardy to about minus twenty. Prune only to remove dead wood, since the bark marks easily and the trunk is the main feature.
Our Take
Grown for a striped green trunk in winter and clean yellow in autumn, and best seen at eye level rather than from a distance.
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