I had scoured my photo library this morning, as I was writing about Acer griseum. I was convinced that at some point I had taken a photo of the leaves of this tree. It's a rare enough species that I knew I'd photograph it if I were to encounter it. I also knew there was a specimen in Central Park Zoo, so I looked through any photos I'd ever taken there. No such luck.
Then, later this morning, when I was working on a post for tomorrow, I found these shots. While they were taken at a zoo, it wasn't Central Park Zoo. Instead, this is from the Asia Trail in the National Zoo.
Above you can note the trifoliate leaves and perhaps even see a slight tomentous quality to them. The leaves are usually coated with small hairs, particularly along the bottom side of the leaf, along the veins.
Even when young, the bark still peels abundantly.
my mother gave me a paperbark maple over a dozen years ago now, shortly after I moved here in NJ. Every spring, a few weeks from now, the sun rises behind it as seen from my kitchen window and lights up that beautiful, exfoliating bark like a halo around the trunk of the tree. And the fall color is better even than the sugar maples. Perhaps my favorite tree of all.
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