Acer griseum

For year-round beauty and interest, Acer griseum, the Paperbark Maple, is often recommended as the ideal tree for a smaller garden. It is slow growing with a rounded crown, attractive leaflets in threes, green above and blue-grey beneath (griseum meaning grey), which turn a wonderful orange-red in autumn.  

But the star quality of this exquisite maple is its uniquely coloured bark, a rich coppery cinnamon which peels in papery strips.  

In 1901, while on an expedition in China’s Hubei province on behalf of the nursery firm of Jas Veitch and Sons, the celebrated plant hunter EH (‘Chinese’) Wilson came upon A. griseum and collected seed.  But the seed is often infertile and it was only after a second expedition nine years later that viable seed was sown and the first plants offered for sale in 1912.

There are three specimens in the Botanical Gardens: one at the bottom of the West Lawn (Area F on the downloadable map); another at the top of the AGM Border (Area S) and a third on the South Lawn (Area R).