Italian Maple
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 Italian Maple leaves in autumn
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| Acer opalus Mill. |
Italian Maple (Acer opalus) is a deciduous tree native to the hills and mountains of southern and western Europe, from Italy to Spain and north to southern Germany, and also in northwest Africa in Morocco and Algeria.
The leaves are glossy green, 7-13 cm long and 5-16 cm across, palmately lobed with blunt teeth. They turn yellow in autumn. The bark is grey and pink. It peels in square plates. It has small yellow flowers that open before the leaves appear. The fruit is a pair of winged samaras, each seed 1 cm diameter with a 1.5-2.5 cm wing.
Trees with shallowly lobed leaves are sometimes separated as a distinct subspecies Acer opalus subsp. obtusatum, but the characters are not constant and the species is treated as monotypic by the Flora Europaea.
[edit] References
- Flora Europaea: Acer opalus
- Rushforth, K. (1999). Trees of Britain and Europe. Collins.
- Coombes, A. J. Trees. Eyewitness Handbooks.
