September 2025: Paperbark Maple

By Andy Mead

September's Tree of the Month is growing in the parking lot of the Kroger supermarket on Euclid Avenue, a long way from its species’ native home in the mixed forests of central China.

Full form paperbark maple in a parking lot well at Kroger on Euclid Avenue, Lexington, Kentucky.  

The paperbark maple (Acer griseum) is a pretty, slow-growing tree that can take two decades to reach 30 feet in height, with upright branching and an oval or rounded crown.

It is one of the last maples to develop fall color, but the soft green leaves turn a brilliant red and persist into the winter. Its most distinguishing characteristic is the bark, which peels with a copper or cinnamon-brown tone that becomes more distinctive with age.

The samaras produced on paperbark maple are mostly empty of seed.

Because of its small size and showiness,

it could be the perfect accent tree near a patio or pool, or in a small yard. And its tolerance of clay soil would make it happy in many Lexington yards. It can tolerate full to partial sun, and is largely pest free. They can sometimes be messy, but don’t produce the many baby trees that are common with other maples. That’s because they produce mostly empty samaras - the winged “helicopters” all maples have - that have no viable seeds. 

The first paperbark maple trees to leave China were collected by plant explorer Ernest Henry Wilson in 1907 and placed in the Harvard University’s Arnold

The coppery - reddish brown, thin, flaky bark is part of the aesthetic that causes the paperbark maple stand out in the landscape.

Arboretum in Boston, where they still stand. Although they now are found in parks and gardens around the temperate world, paperbark maples ironically are now considered rare in China. Because of their colors and slow growth, they also are a popular bonsai tree.

Here are a few sites with more information on the paperbark maple, the first of which includes a short video:

https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/acer-griseum/

https://www.thespruce.com/growing-the-paperbark-maple-acer-griseum-3269319

https://arboretum.harvard.edu/plant-bios/paperbark-maple/

Soft paperbark maple leaves turn vibrant red late in the fall, and leaves remain on the tree into the winter. 

All photos by Greg Doyle