They are generally rounded shrubs or gnarled trees.ĭwarf Group - Cultivars whose mature height does not usually exceed 6 feet. The lobes are strong doubly serrate and the vast majority of cultivars in this group have a weeping habit. All the members of this group originate from the species Acer matsumurae with which they share their deeply divided leaves, all the way to the base of the leaf. Leaf lobes are wide and simply serrate.ĭissectum Group - Leaf lobes very deeply divided and deeply dissected into sublobes.
These seven groups are defined mainly by the division of their leaf lobes or, in the case of the dwarf group, the ultimate height of the cultivar.Īmoenum Group - These small growing trees have seven to nine leaf lobes that are shallowly to moderately divided-up to two-thirds of the way to the leaf base. For this website, we have listed the seven groups defined by J.D. Over the years, many horticulturalists have attempted to split the hundreds of Japanese Maple cultivars into distinct groups. With grey-brown, smooth bark and 5 to 9 lobed leaves, Japanese Maples have excellent red and gold fall color and are extremely varied in their habit and size across various cultivars.
Growing wild within, or on the edge of, mixed broad-leaved woodlands, today there are hundreds of cultivars of Japanese Maple used for a variety of landscape purposes from foundation to specimen planting across the world. After nearly 80 years of obscurity, the Japanese Maple became popular and began to spread across the world. The Japanese Maple was first shown to European explorers in 1783 and introduced to the West in 1820.