Acer griseum

Below we have Acer griseum, or paperbark maple, flanking an entry to the sculpture garden.  Again, we can age this landscape at about 20 years, which makes sense for this species.  They grow slowly - 6-12" per year and are unlikely to get much taller than 25'. 

 

   

Below, you can verify the plant is a maple, by checking the leaf orientation: opposite.  However as you can see, the young shoots have very short internodes which can make this identification a bit trickier. In the summer, leaves are trifoliate and in the fall, A. griseum is one of the last maples to turn red, sometimes fall color doesn't occur until late November, even in Boston.

Acer griseum can be a darling for landscape architects, due to its slow growth (expense) and its papery, exfoliating bark.  Indeed, the back is beautiful, with reddish-cinnamon peels curling off the trunk.  There's some debate about the quality of fall color; Dirr is downright skeptical, claiming that he rarely sees anything beyond a muddy red.

A. griseum can be classified among other species of maple as a subgroup of trifoliate maples.  Others include A. mandshuricum, A. triflorum, and A. maximowicszianum.