Description: Shrub or small tree with short trunk and slender, upright branches, hairless throughout.

Height: 9 m

Diameter: 30 cm

Leaves: Opposite; 4-11 cm long and wide, sometimes smaller. Very variable - three (sometimes five) short-pointed lobes or divided into three lanceolate leaflets; doubly saw-toothed, three or five main veins from base; petiole 4-7 cm long, reddish. Shiny dark green above, paler or whitish beneath; turning red or yellow in autumn.

Bark: Grey or brown, smooth, thin.

Shoots: Reddish-brown, slender.

Flowers: Few; 6 mm wide; greenish-yellow; four narrow sepals and four petals on drooping stalks; in branched clusters 2.5-5 cm long; male and female usually on separate plants; with new leaves in spring (towards end of April).

Fruit: 2-2.5 cm long; paired, forking, long-winged keys; reddish, turning light brown; one-seeded; maturing in late summer or autumn.

Habitat: Moist soils, especially along canyons and mountain slopes in coniferous forests. California plant communities: North Coastal Coniferous Forest (m10), Douglas-Fir Forest (m13), Yellow Pine Forest (m14), Red Fir Forest (m15) and Lodgepole Forest (m16).

Range: SE Alaska, British Columbia, and SW Alberta, south mostly in mountains to S New Mexico and S California; to 1500-2750m in south.

The Northernmost maple in the New World, it extends through SE Alaska. Deer, Elk, cattle and sheep browse the foliage. The specific epithet, meaning 'hairless', refers to the leaves.

Information: Audubon (1980), Bean I (1976).

Source: Subspecies douglasii, Chiltern Seeds.
In 1993 we bought (at excessive expense) a tree from Mallet Court Nursery, Curry Mallet, near Taunton, Somerset, by mail order (an error). This was supplied bigger than its packaging, hence its leader was broken in transit. It was also the single most pot-bound plant I have ever seen, and consequently it was not surprising that it didn't even put out leaves in the spring after it was planted. A complaint about this and several other "trees" (most of the others were the size of twigs and hardly big enough to survive their journey) to Mallet Court Nurseries got a most complacent reply, with no offer of compensation for the atrocious goods supplied. Needless to say, we will never use this particular supplier again.

Purchased: 1993.

Planted: 1993.

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