Red Snake-bark Maple  Acer capillipes

A native of southern Japan which was introduced to the UK in 1894. It is probably the most frequently planted of the Snake-bark maples. It is a small tree growing to 15m with a trunk of 0.7m diameter.

Maple-red Snakebark leaf
Maple-red Snakebark bark

The bark is smooth, greenish (when young) with longitudinal narrow white stripes and small horizontal brownish lenticels.

The leaves are 10-15cm long with three or five lobes and a serrated (toothed) margin. They are matt green in summer turning bright yellow through to red in the autumn. The leaf petioles (stalks) are red which distinguishes it from the similar Grey-budded Snake-bark Maple Acer rufinerve in which the petioles are green.

At Keele : one specimen in the Special Collection below the walled garden; compartment 24; square K10.

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