All about maple trees and how to grow them | House & Garden

Should you be stopped in your tracks by the blazing colour of a tree this autumn, it is likely to be a maple (Acer). Their distinctive palmate leaves burn breathtaking, vivid shades of scarlet, ruby, or gold before they fall, outshining most trees in the vicinity. Some acers also offer colourful spring foliage; others have a sculptural spreading shape with multiple trunks; and a few provide attractive bark during the winter months.

Of the 153 species, around 80% are classed as native to Asia, with the rest mostly native to North America, Europe, and North Africa. It is believed that the plants all originated in Asia and gradually spread – for example, via the Bering Land Bridge. In the modern era, of course, many were introduced. The most well-known garden form – the Japanese maple Acer palmatum – was brought to Europe by Swedish botanist Carl Peter Thunberg. He decided upon the species name palmatum because the leaves resemble a hand. The word Acer is thought to derive from the Latin acris (sharp), after the pointy tips of the leaves. 

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While the foliage is the focus for most people, to a musician, the magic of a maple is its wood. Possessing the golden combination of strength and great resonance, it is the favoured tonewood used to carve the body back of a violin. The tiger stripes on the back of a Stradivarius are the grain of maple (probably A. platanoides). Some luthiers will even visit a maple before it is cut to check that the tree is growing in the optimum conditions to produce the right stiffness and tone.

The Romans used sturdy maple wood to fashion writing desks; and, in the US today, robust furniture and even bowling alleys are made from A. saccharum. Also known as the